2~

The facility was positioned deep under the building to receive the maximum amount of attention and power available to maintain it, and to keep the facility as shielded from an unwitting populace as possible, in the event of a catastrophe.

That kind of knowledge didn't deter Marcie or Daisy after they disembarked from the elevator and walked through the small, corridor maze of Stasis Management and Control.

Following the floor maps that were hung at intervals on the walls, they continued their trek until they came to a T-section.

Sneaking over to its left corner, they peered slowly around it. Up ahead, two Clockwatchers, Sundial's private security force, stood, flanking a door marked Stasis Chamber 1. The guards wore only their livery, an ID badge, a key card, and no other protection, which suited the two girls fine.

The duo ducked back around the corner, with Marcie, then handing a small capsule to Daisy.

"Okay," Marcie whispered. "Don't forget to hold your breath and close your eyes."

"Right," Daisy said, nervously, fingering her Discourager, and then hiding it within her closed hand. Then, they both took a breath and began their act of defiance.

The Clockwatchers grew alert as they saw the two teens approach their length of hallway, as non-chalantly as they could appear.

Clockwatcher Number One brought up a hand to halt them, saying, "I'm sorry, you two, but non-personnel are not allowed down here."

"Not even technicians?" Daisy countered.

"You don't look like technicians," Clockwatcher Number Two said.

"I'm not," Daisy lied. "I'm in Sales." She nodded over to Marcie, who surreptitiously moved next to Number Two. "She's the technician."

"Oh, really?" asked Number One, as unconvinced at their ploy, as he was amused at the distraction. "Then, where are your badges?"

Inwardly, they both shook. They were so focused on getting this done that they had forgotten something rather crucial. Disguises.

'We can kick ourselves, later,' Daisy thought, jumping onto another lie as soon as it sounded good to her.

"Well, like I said, I work in the Sales Department. I'm so good at selling things, that I convince security to let me in to work, every morning," she boasted.

"Uh, yeah," Marcie added, hesitantly. "And besides, I'm wearing glasses. What kind of technician would I be if I didn't?"

"Well, we're carrying tasers," Number Two pointed out. "So, what kind of guards would we be?"

Marcie ignored the two guards, looked past them over to Daisy, and whispered, "Tasers? I didn't see any tasers. Did you?"

Daisy shook her head and whispered back, "No. Do we keep going?"

"We might as well."

Both girls, satisfied that they were standing close enough to their individual targets, manipulated their hands, slightly, to produce their Discouragers, unseen by the Clockwatchers, quietly held their breaths, and then, dashed the capsules to the floor.

The combined, non-lethal clouds filled that section of the hallway quickly. The guards, not seeing the girls leave the area, assumed that the chemical smoke wasn't a soporific, and tried to stay at their posts, despite their eyes beginning to water freely and their breathing becoming more labored.

As one, they clumsily produced their own non-lethals from holsters in the back of their belts, but they couldn't draw a bead on the teens, as their eyes were burning too badly.

All four figures were swallowed deep by the thick miasma, with only the sounds of confused struggle announcing that anyone was in there. Then, the mist, suddenly, gave the appearance of a small thundercloud, as a crackle sounded, and two flashes of electric-blue light illuminated its depths, followed by the thunder of a pair of heavy thuds.

The door opened, drawing two breathless girls and some of the Discourager cloud into the chamber.

Marcie and Daisy stumbled and jogged further into the spacious room to get away from the fumes, and then stopped to catch their breath.

"Don't pretend that went according to plan," Daisy wheezed, holding a purloined key card and a taser.

"You're right," Marcie panted, holding her own similar items. "It was better, because not even the guards knew what we were going to do."

Daisy stood up and took a look around. The room was large and gave the low hum of constant power flowing into it. Filling its interior and arranged like some grand geometry exhibit, were glowing cubes of various dimensions, small, tall, wide and long.

Each cube had a Y-shaped lock pedestal, with a card slot built into the ends of each upright arm and a lock/unlock button in its center where the arms conjoined. The simultaneous scan of two key cards was needed to release its contents.

"Hey, Marcie, check it out," said Daisy, walking over to a stasis cube and looking into its contents: a juvenile Tyrannosaurus Rex.

Marcie approached, then noticed a small cadre of armed Redcoats in dreamless sleep within another cube.

Thus, they both moved through the outer rings of this historical museum of the living, seeing preserved pirates, Roman soldiers and barbarians, past citizens presumed lost in their native times, Nazi officers, and even a extraterrestrial pilot and its small crew, while they wandered deeper and deeper towards the cubes that lay in the center of the room.

"They have to be around here, somewhere," Marcie said to herself, moving past a single, contained pair of mating dodoes. Then, her eyes caught the sight of a white sweater, and she approached that particular cube.

She gasped upon, finally, seeing the familiar quintet of Scooby, Shaggy, Freddy, Daphne and a still sleeping Velma.

"Daisy, I found them!" Marcie called out, staring at Velma in relief. In her repose, she never looked so at peace to her.

A running Daisy soon reached Marcie, and they both stood and watched the people that they risked time travel to bring back. It was a somber, sobering feeling that came over them. They felt older and worn-out from the experience, and yet, wiser and more powerful for it, as well.

Marcie fingered her card, anxiously. She couldn't help thinking that this was going to be a slap in the face to Sundial, whose resources allowed her to rescue their people, in the first place.

As if Daisy had read her thoughts, she said, off-handedly, "You know that we're going to make Sheriff Stone's day with this stunt, right?"

Marcie sighed in acknowledgement. The sheriff lived to prove that she was not only wasting her time solving mysteries before he could, but that her actions were, ultimately, costly to the town, either financially or socially. If he knew that she was, blatantly, breaking the law...

She shuddered. Thoughts of spending any amount of hard time in Crystal Cove's prison would make her time spent in the sheriff's holding cells seem like a summer retreat.

"Yeah, and I know that criminal trespass won't be the only charge he'll stick us with, too. But, I'm sick and tired of the run-around. I don't owe this Mystery Incorporated anything," she defended. "Still, I don't want to get you in trouble, Daisy. If you want to bail, I'll understand."

"Are you kidding?" Daisy exclaimed. "I didn't come all this way to not see my sister back with her family. We'll see this through to the end, Marcie. Besides, if worse come to worse, my folks have some of the best lawyers around. We can always sue Sundial for wrongful marooning in time!"

Marcie had to smile at that. She held up her key card. "Okay, let's get them out of here, so Mystery Inc. goes back to their own timeline, and good riddance."

"Good riddance," Daisy concurred, raising her key card. Then, she cocked her head to one side, listening. "Do you hear something?"

"Nope."

They both brought their keys to the slots, counted to three, and then, inserted them at the same time.

Marcie moved her hand over the lit, center button. One swat on it, and it would be the beginning of their lives, again, and end of the troublesome Mystery Incorporated's in this Crystal Cove.

"Send me a postcard," she sneered.

The sound of paws scrabbling across the floor in a mad dash, alerted them to a frantic Nova bounding among the cubes to reach them.

She cried out a single word, "No!"

Before Marcie's hand went down, there was a blinding flash of light from an unseen source, and both Marcie and Daisy's world flew far from them.

A full, white moon hung low in a cloudless night sky. Three large ships were pulling silently from a moonlit harbor, after finishing their resupply and allowing hosts of missionaries to board, on their way to the far corners of the world where they would work to proselytize for the masses.

Three miles out, the various captains of the vessels spotted a flotilla of smaller ships making their way towards the harbor. Their flags flew the colors of a friendly nation, and so the captains were not alarmed.

Because the missionary fleet was sailing in a tight protective group, the individual ships of the incoming flotilla broke formation, to maneuver out of the way of it.

However, it wasn't until a few minutes later that something seemed amiss. Only half the flotilla's number avoided the fleet, but the other half turned, tightly, into the night breeze to sail in the same direction as the missionary ships.

That, to the confused captains, looked like a perplexing thing for the smaller ships to do. The first flotilla's half, then banked into a wide, circling flank behind the rear of the fleet.

The blare of a horn trumpeted in the dark, and then, the second half of the flotilla, up ahead, heeled over and began to follow the first in circling the missionary ships. Then, their cannons spoke.

Utilizing their combined speed, team work and firepower, the flotilla corralled the fleet and tore into them, like a pack of hunting dogs on deer.

When it was, finally, over, the flotilla, now bearing the green and gold colors of Lord Greenman, slipped away into the distance, while the last of the wrecked missionary ships and their priestly cargo, slipped away into the cold, dark, fathomless waters.

The explosion of white that, mysteriously, bloomed in the depths of Marcie's mind had long transmuted into the darkness of a timeless sleep. Oblivious to the world around her, she didn't feel the breeze on her face, or the vacillating stench of dead bodies that it carried on the wind.

Gradually, a sense of time let itself be felt within her consciousness, and a soft, constant tapping was being acknowledged by her senses, specifically on her cheek.

Slow awareness came upon her, and Marcie opened her eyes to find herself lying on a cracked pavement, looking up at a sky dotted with scavenging birds. She turned her head, to see a concerned Daisy kneeling by her side, and Nova's tongue darting upon her upturned cheek, in an attempt to awaken her.

"What...What happened?" Marcie asked, groggily. "Where are we, and why does it smell like road kill?"

"It's hard for even me to believe it," Daisy said, looking around at the trash-and debris-strewn ground. "But, it looks like we're still in town. I think."

"You think?" That didn't sound comforting to Marcie.

"It just feels...off."

"What do you mean 'off?'"

"Well, look around," Daisy said. "Where is everybody?"

Marcie, gingerly, got to her feet, her eyes catching sight of the closest thing in her view, the marred and crumbling facade of a large, Mission-style building to her side. Turning, she faced the still standing ruins of Crystal Cove High School.

Confused, Marcie muttered, "I don't think we're on a movie set." Then, she turned to face the, suspiciously, quiet Annunaki. "Nova, what's going on, here? What did you do?"

"What I had to do to stop you from bringing Mystery Incorporated back here," Nova said.

"Back here?" Those two words answered more questions in Marcie's mind than even she knew to ask, and made her, extremely, nervous. "You mean...that this is their Crystal Cove? Their universe? Why did you bring us here? We don't belong here! Take us back!"

"Not yet," Nova said, simply.

"Not yet?" Marcie was starting to have her fill of Nova's cryptic, zen-like demeanor, under the circumstances. "Take us back home, you...you cosmic kidnapper!"

Nova glanced around, pensively, as if listening out for a predator. "Shh! We have to be careful, here. Somebody might hear you."

"And that's a bad thing, how?" asked Daisy. "We're going to need a place to crash when it gets dark. Y'know, civilization?"

"Because, I am the only one who can return you to your universe, and that might be hard to do, if we're caught trespassing in a disaster area."

"Point goes to you," Marcie sighed, begrudgingly.

"Ah, no problem!" Daisy brightened. "Now, that I think about it, we can go to my parents' house, and I can pull a Mystery Inc., there."

Nova cocked her head, quizzically, to the side. "A what?"

"I'll pass myself off as their daughter," Daisy interpreted, coolly.

"There's no need," Nova said.

"How come?"

"Because, apart from the construction crews and rescue workers," the dog said. "You, Marcie, and I are the only living people in this town."

It felt like an anvil had fallen on their heads. Daisy and Marcie gave each other uncomfortable glances, while their stomachs grew slightly cool at that dour knowledge.

Daisy, suddenly, imagined a, now, looted and abandoned mansion, bereft of the lives of slacker siblings, or slightly judgmental parents. As for Marcie, she, grimly, wondered how her home, or the amusement park, had fared, or, more personally, how her father died.

Marcie shook her head of that, at once. She had to remember that Winslow was still alive, estranged to her, but alive. Yet, it was getting too easy making the possessive mistake that the deceased Winslow Fleach, here, was her father, and that the house and the amusement park, whatever their ultimate condition, was hers, as well.

Annoyed, Marcie glanced back at Nova. "Are you going to take us back, or not, Nova?"

"Not yet," the dog maintained.

Forgetting that she wasn't truly a dog, Marcie hoped to stare Nova down into changing her mind, simply, by dint of her being human, but, eventually, she could see, behind those large, friendly, brown eyes, that the Annunaki remained resolute to her decision.

"Let's steal a car, and get to the mansion," Marcie sighed to Daisy, heading towards the school parking lot, cluttered with abandoned cars.

It was quiet except for the sound of slow-moving tires crunching on the expelled grit of craters and uprooted slabs of street, as a purloined automobile with a cracked windshield, maneuvered through the town.

"So, the whole town was fighting this Evil Entity guy?" Daisy asked Nova, watching the destroyed urban landscape slowly pass by her as she drove. "That's why it looks like this?"

"Yes and no," said the dog from the back seat.

Marcie rolled her eyes. "Typical Annunaki answer," she groused to herself, as she watched the ruination go by from her passenger window.

Nova ignored her jab and continued. "It's hard to tell where the death toll was greatest: in the streets, or in the caves under the town, where a good deal of the fighting took place. The people, originally captured and put to work by Professor Pericles-"

"The Creationex mascot?" Daisy asked, almost laughing.

"No," Nova explained. "In this universe, he was the previous Mystery Incorporated's mascot and pet to Ricky Owens, known here as Mr. E.. Anyway, they, eventually, rose up and fought back to free themselves from Pericles' robot soldiers. What they didn't know was that they would soon face something even more deadly than mere machines."

"The Evil Entity?"

Nova nodded, solemnly. "Yes, and his horde of minions, who brought him citizens to devour for their fear, just as much as for their flesh. They were snatched from the streets, or torn from their homes, and those that resisted too much, were killed where they stood."

"But, Mystery Incorporated did save the day, right?" Marcie asked, sarcastically.

"They engaged The Evil Entity, directly, while his servants slaughtered the town, feeding him. He was too massive and powerful for them to do both. Yes, Crystal Cove and its people fell that day, but what was that, compared to the fate of an entire world?"

Marcie shrugged off the argument. Although it tickled her, darkly, to notice that some of Nova's calmness was wearing away, ever so slightly, because for a moment, she sounded like someone familiar. "Whatever, Schrödinger. All I know is that my dad is-"

She caught herself, again, hating what this place was doing to her, unconsciously, associating her Crystal Cove with this one, identifying her father with a dead one. Why? They weren't the same, and yet, something in her mind kept, easily, making connections between them on an emotional level, and that angered her. The last thing she wanted was to empathize with the saviors of this world, if not this sad, sacrificed town.

"Your dad is what?" Daisy asked, overhearing.

"Nothing," said Marcie, failing to come up with a lie. "I was just thinking out loud."

"Oh, okay," said Daisy, slowing down to drive around another sinkhole in the street. "I'm sorry it's taking so long to get to the mansion, guys, but these roads are murder. It's like a war zone around here."

"It was," Nova said. "The greatest cosmic war ever waged was fought on the most unlikeliest of battlefields."

"Are you sure that no one else survived?" Daisy asked.

"Yes, I'm afraid."

"Daisy, don't you know better than to doubt the senses of an Annunaki?" Marcie mocked. "Her 'death-sense' must be all a-tingle."

"Yes," Nova said, pensively. "We Annunaki can sense life and death as easily as you can smell a flower, but I feel something, as well. Ever since we arrived, there has been...an uneasiness, a lingering malaise hanging in the air. Like a chord echoing long after the notes were played. It worries me."

Daisy, absently, imagined the final note in an evil version of The Beatles' A Day In The Life, and then, cursed herself for her momentary lack of focus.

A yellowish, blocky shape, a driven backhoe, suddenly, trundled out of the mouth of a small side street at a fair speed, too fast for its driver to avoid the stolen car.

Daisy's attention, however, caught sight of the bright color of the construction vehicle at the last minute, and, with frantic spins of the steering wheel, she swerved the car out of the way before it t-boned the other vehicle.

She missed the digger, however, she failed to react to what was ahead, next.

The car bounced out of a pothole, and then, rolled up onto a raised slab of street that settled into an incline, which tilted the conveyance in an awkwardly upward angle, and then, came to a sharp halt, when the front driver-side tire got stuck over the accidental ramp's lip.

While the passengers attempted to recover from the sudden scare, the backhoe rumbled to a stop, and the irate driver, a construction worker, leaned out of the reinforced cab, yelling, "Hey! What are you doing here? This is a disaster area. Back that car up, and get outta here!"

"We'd love that, really," Daisy said with a mock-innocent shrug to the man, from her window. "But, Precious Pupp, back here, kidnapped us, and won't take us back home. Crazy day, isn't it?"

A brief look of confusion crossed the construction worker's face, then he pulled his walkie-talkie free from his tool belt, and reported to his supervisor on why he would be late getting to the next work site.

Marcie glanced at the back seat to Nova, whispering, "You know, you can still fix this, if you take us back."

Nova said nothing, but instead, gave a bark, and put on the airs of a normal Cocker Spaniel.

"Oh, now you act like a dog, huh?" Daisy groused. "Well, I hope you like being in a pet carrier while we try to explain ourselves."

She leaned back to look out of the rear window and saw a cadre of other construction and rescue workers gathering a few yards away, attracted to the near-accident, and then approach the hung-up car, from behind.

"Explain ourselves?" Marcie chuckled, mirthlessly, while she heard them coming closer to the car. "We're in the middle of this, and even I wouldn't want to believe me, if I told myself."