I'm quite proud of this chapter. I got to be a little deep a few times.


Chapter 7: Cloudy with a Chance of Clouds

Ratchet couldn't say how much time had passed since their arrival on this dismally damp planet, be it mere weeks or a period ranging closer to a month, for only Clank and Lawrence appeared to be keeping track, and he cared little to ask. All that really mattered right now, ever since starvation had stopped being a concern, was Aphelion's repairs, a task he could happily say was very near completion. And as he worked one thoroughly wet afternoon, crouched beneath Aphelion's right wing as he tightened a bolt with his wrench after replacing a panel he had removed for maintenance, something came to his attention that he hadn't experienced since the moment they arrived.

Silence.

His ears pricked up, and he leaned out from beneath the wing of the ship and the tarp pinned about it to stare up at a sky devoid of rain for the first time in all his long weeks here. He blinked. Unless he was mistaken, it almost seemed as if the rain had actually…reversed direction in order to rejoin the clouds before ever reaching the ground. He shook his head. Nonsense, that simply wasn't…

And yet, he stayed as quiet and still as this sudden lull he had found himself caught in the middle of, a calm that set his stomach on edge, and he took notice of a tingling in his body as his fur stood up on end, and his limbs tensed as he gazed up at clouds that had never before looked as dark as they did now, an eerie blackness that was only illuminated in patches of dull grey whenever the lightning sparked above.

He listened to the thunder's muted rumbling, staring at the clouds that almost seemed to be drifting lower, and he began to run with little understanding of why he was doing it, but once he reached the facility, there was no need to tell anyone the news, for Clank and Ophelia were already outside, as well, the little robot remaining by the doorway, as if expecting some unwanted surprise.

"Those clouds don't look pleased," Ophelia said as Ratchet slowed to a walk nearby, shielding her eyes in an absent manner when there was no sunlight to shield them from. "How's the ship?"

"Almost done. We still can't go anywhere with the clouds like that, though." The Lombax gestured to the sky with one thumb thrust over his shoulder as his robotic friend stepped aside at his approach.

"Maybe now the storm will clear up?"

Ratchet merely shrugged and directed a perplexed frown back in her direction as she turned to follow.

"Have you ever seen clouds that dark before?" Ophelia continued, nearly knocking the Lombax over as she squeezed by him on her way inside. "Oh, hey, how much longer before the ship's done, do you think?"

"I dunno, maybe a few days," Ratchet said with a shrug. "But, like I said—"

"I know!" She spun with a hop to face him again, the sudden movement causing all of her many trinkets to jiggle and clink together. "We should have a feast to celebrate! Well, it won't really be much of a feast, but we have to do something. The rain's gone, the ship's almost fixed. I even caught another chicken a few days ago!"

"Are you sure that is sanitary?" Clank asked. "I do not recall you practicing safe food-handling techniques."

She waved one hand at him. "Pshaw, it'll be fine. I'm going to get ready. Sound good, Mr. Lombax?"

"I don't think my answer will matter either—"

"Good." And just like that, she was off in the direction of her room, clinking all the way, while Ratchet merely watched her departure with a frown and a raised eyebrow.

He opened his mouth, only to close it again when it occurred to him that nothing needed to be said. When he turned back to his friend, he caught the diminutive robot peering out the front door again, and Ratchet stepped closer to get another look at the churning clouds above.

"There is something wrong about those clouds," Clank said, and though the Lombax might have suspected it, hearing those very things uttered by the robot only succeeded in making his stomach sink further. He really didn't think he had the appetite for Ophelia's feast, potential threat of ebola or no.

"What do you think's going on?"

The robot shook his head, his only response to ask, "You believe Aphelion will be in working order soon?"

"Yeah, but there's still that lightning to worry about." He turned to head back further inside, where the sight of the foreboding clouds were lost to him, even if the thunder wasn't.

He heard the door close behind him as Clank spoke, "Perhaps we should ask Dr. Nefarious for help on this matter? He might have some ideas."

Ratchet dropped into his usual armchair, the cushion of which was getting flatter each time he sat on it. "I'm tired of asking Nefarious for help. And the more I expect his help, the more he's going to expect ours."

"Have you decided yet what you are going to do about them? Dr. Nefarious and Lawrence, I mean."

"Decided? I've already decided! They're not coming with us! End of story!" Ratchet crossed his arms, a sure sign of a mind that's been made up, before he turned back to his friend with a curious gaze. "But, what do you mean by…what am I going to do about them?"

Clank pulled himself up into the seat nearby, but even then, he took to addressing his own feet as he said, "You seem quite adamant about leaving them here. I just wanted to see if you had changed your mind now that I fear the situation has become more dangerous."

Ratchet frowned, but no amount of staring could make his friend look over, and he sighed. "Look, Clank, if you feel that strongly about helping them…" he looked away, "I-I didn't mean to say that we had to handle this my way and my way only, but you have to know that this is the best decision." He directed a sidelong glance back in the robot's direction. "Right?"

Clank's head only hung lower. "That might…not be for me to decide."

"Huh?"

"I cannot always decide for you what is right and wrong. You must do that on your own." His friend turned to him at last, and Ratchet winced at the strangely solemn look in his green optics. "But, think for a moment, would you really be fine with leaving Dr. Nefarious and Lawrence to the same fate as the research team?"

"Actually, the real question is, would I be fine with helping them, considering the alternative? Don't tell me the universe wouldn't be a better place without them."

Clank turned away. "That is why it is your decision to make."

"But, why? You didn'texplain that to me the first time. Why would it be my decision?"

The robot returned his attention to him, and this time he didn't look away. "Ratchet, I have a question. And I want you to answer me honestly."

"Yeah, what is it?"

"I was created in a robot factory. Does that make me…artificial?"

"Wh-what would make you think that?"

"I am made of metal, and I am comprised of circuits and gears. My thought processes come from my sisterboard and my CPU. I may very well be little more than an advanced computer."

Ratchet was silent at first at this unexpected query, until it hit him. "Ophelia said something, didn't she?" He leaned over the armrest with an intensity to match his words. "Don't listen to a word she says! She doesn't know what she's talking about!"

"But, Ratchet—"

"No, you are-you are not a computer or just a piece of walking metal. You are my best friend, and I'd have to be a pretty big loser to have an-an object as my best friend, wouldn't I?" His voice softened when Clank's expression failed to change. "Clank, you had a father, remember? Orvus created you, and even if you did come from a factory, that's not the part that matters. What matters is you have people that care about you. People don't care about machines."

Clank's eyelids lowered further. "I suppose so."

"No, don't suppose. It's true. Believe it. All right?"

"Yes, Ratchet."

The Lombax settled back in his seat and sighed when Clank's attention slipped away once again. "Clank…"

"Ratchet, I would like some time to think…if you would not mind."

"Sure thing, buddy."

Ratchet stood and headed towards the hallway, pausing halfway there to add, "I mean it, you don't need to take anything she says seriously. Don't let her change how you feel about yourself."

"Thank you, Ratchet."

Ratchet's feet took him down a series of hallways until he arrived at the door to Dr. Nefarious' office, and though he was sure it wouldn't be long before his opinion changed, he thought the scientist seemed marginally more tolerable than a certain someone right now, and with a growing desperation to leave this planet far behind, he was more and more willing to seek drastic measures.

Nevertheless, his arm didn't want to lift from his side, though once it did, he had little trouble forming his hand into a fist, even if he would have liked to use it for a different purpose, and he knocked on the door while his mind scrambled for some excuse for being here that the supervillain wouldn't mistake for groveling.

"Do you need something?"

Ratchet yelped at a voice from nearby, and his head jerked around to face Lawrence, the always stoic butler barely illuminated in the dimly lit hallways. "Stop sneaking up on me like that!"

"Excuse me if I've been apparently awaiting your arrival from the shadows so that I could, as you put it, 'sneak up' on you. If you're looking for my employer, he's currently out at the moment, but you're welcome to leave a message. I promise I'll try moderately hard to remember it."

"Well, where is he?"

"How should I know? He just…wandered off again." He mimicked the motion of walking legs with two fingers. "I'll probably go looking for him in a few hours. You know, to ensure he's still alive." The butler looked ready to yawn. "He probably is."

"Well, never mind, then."

"Have a nice day."

Ratchet got to searching the labs beyond the living quarters when the doctor couldn't be found in the immediate vicinity of his office, and he regretted neglecting to bring his wrench when something that sounded moist shuffled past a half-open doorway. His pace picked up, and it wasn't until he had reached the barricaded greenhouse doors and had decided that it was high time he turned back that he found what he was looking for. Or more accurately, he was found by the one he was looking for.

"Don't come any closer," a familiar voice said, "or I'll annihilate you!"

While instinct, not to mention nerves that had constantly been on edge ever since the first time a bush had lunged for him, caused Ratchet to freeze at the sound, he had to admit to a surprising amount of comfort the grating voice of the scientist brought. At least the grouchy Kerwanoid had no intention of eating him. Though, the supervillain had looked pretty hungry the last time he had seen him….

With a new potential danger lodged in his mind with no way of getting it free until he had confirmed his nemesis wasn't currently in possession of a fork and knife, his head zipped this way and that, but he caught sight of nothing more than the tendrils of plant life that had ventured inside and toppled and decaying furniture.

"It's-it's just me! Ratchet!" the Lombax began. "Where-where are you?"

He caught in the gloom Dr. Nefarious emerge from behind an old desk in the corner, blaster still held at the ready for the promised annihilation. "What do you want, squishy?"

"Would you stop aiming guns at me! Look," Ratchet patted at himself, "I'm not armed!"

"What do you want?" the scientist repeated, a wild glint in his eyes that the Lombax knew all too well. The look of paranoia. While he stood here, distracted by one potential threat to his wellbeing, a severed and mutated thistle could be inching its way towards him right now, like some kind of grotesque worm, preparing itself to latch around his ankle….

"J-just put it down, all right?" The Lombax attempted to sidle out of the way of the blaster, only to be followed by it. "And…were you…hiding just now?"

"Who's the one with a gun aimed at them?"

"Never mind! I-I just came here to ask you something. That's all. It's certainly nothing I need to be shot over."

Dr. Nefarious dropped his blaster back down to his side and considered him with half-hidden eyes, though it did little to hide the obvious malice they held, and the doctor said in a low growl, "I'll be the judge of that…."

"You wanted us here to help you off this planet," Ratchet began, and he eased himself down onto a table across from the scientist, "but…I need your help, too. The ship's…the ship's almost done, but we can't go anywhere with those storm clouds, and just today—"

"Yeah, I saw them." Nefarious turned on his heel and began to pace by, though with nowhere in particular to go, save for having restless feet, and he continued, "And I certainly haven't been sitting around doing nothing this whole time like you seem to believe."

"I don't remember saying that, but okay."

He paced by in the other direction. "I have, in fact, been working on a device to attract the lightning."

Ratchet frowned. "And…we want that?"

The supervillain halted mid-stride to round on what he surely believed to be an absurd question. "Yes, of course we do, you twit!" He gestured overhead with a sweep of one arm. "It will attract the lightning to it, allowing us to escape unharmed."

The Lombax blinked as he awaited further explanation, but none came. "Uh-huh. And…is there any way we can…I don't know…test thi—"

"It'll work. You'll see." The scientist turned and strode away before dropping into a seat that had been left sideways at its assigned desk and draped his arm over the back. "So, are we through here?"

"Uh, well…" Ratchet scratched his hear, and he tensed when thunder rumbled low overhead, a deep grumbling that rattled his very bones, and even the supervillain looked up and studied the ceiling, as if inspecting its integrity. "Uh, what are you doing here anyway? In the dark, I mean. This isn't really the safest place to be spending time alone."

When it seemed the roof didn't intend on collapsing any time soon, Nefarious' gaze turned to staring at the corner across the room from him, and while Ratchet would normally assume the doctor's eyelids were drooped nearly to the point of being closed due to simple lethargy, he thought he caught a strange solemn glumness not particularly characteristic of the supervillain.

"I was just checking on the generators," the scientist said, his voice flat, and his tired gaze sharpened. "Why? Are you suddenly concerned for my wellbeing, Lombax?"

"Well, not exactly, but…" He trailed off and chewed on his bottom lip. Not that he had spent much time around the scientist, but this sudden quiet was not something he expected, nor something he had seen since one night on Magnus when he had woken up to find Nefarious sitting off by himself and staring out across the gently bobbing waters of Octonok Cay, looking strangely forlorn despite his distance from them being by his own choice. Of course, he had never questioned him on it, as the villain wasn't exactly the approachable type, especially when that person had red eyes and a rotten demeanor.

"I just wondered," Ratchet continued as he remembered the butler's own motivation for showing up in such a dark and eerie spot, "if you were here because you wanted to get away from Lawrence…"

"He's such a snotty, little twit sometimes," Nefarious said, only to grow silent again, but it was enough to make the Lombax draw back.

"Yeah, well, I'm…I'm kind of surprised you two have stuck together for as long as you have," Ratchet said, and he began to fidget when he fell under the scientist's scrutiny.

Nefarious remained wordless, and when the Lombax couldn't decipher the expression on his face, he turned away to study the tendrils of vines that had at one time burst through an air duct and had since crept across nearly the entire width of the ceiling.

"He'd be an idiot to go anywhere else," the doctor said at last, though his voice continued to retain a curious lack of conviction, and Ratchet squirmed all the more on the hard surface he had chosen as a seat and readjusted the fingers he had wrapped around the edge of the table.

"Yeah, I guess, uh…look," he pushed himself to his feet, "we were going to have…I don't know, some kind of a dinner to celebrate the ship being nearly finished. Do you…you're…you're welcome to join us, if you want. And if you don't aim any more weapons at me," he added. Otherwise, he didn't think he'd have much of an appetite. Not that he did now.

"'We'?" the scientist repeated. "What other squishies are there but me and you and-" Ratchet's eyes narrowed as the scientist snorted with sudden laughter. "Oh, I see!"

"It's-it's not like that! And besides, it was her idea, not mine!"

The scientist nearly fell out of his seat in his unrestrained mirth, and frankly, the Lombax didn't think it was even half as funny as the other seemed to believe.

"Naive squishy!" the scientist said between giggles, and Ratchet rolled his eyes.

"Why would I invite you if it was that kind of dinner anyway?"

"Because…" his sniggering increased, and he slapped one knee, "because you're stupid!"

"Just forget it."

"Oh, I assure you, I won't!"

With a snarl, the Lombax stomped by, only to be halted when the doctor spoke up behind him, his tone taking on a somewhat more controlled quality.

"By the way, Ratchet…"

He bit his lower lip. "What?"

"Won't…" more chuckling, and then, "won't Clank be jealous?"

"Ha ha, very funny."

"But, don't you get it? Because—"

"Yeah, I get it."

"-because you two seem to have a rather…close relationship. And by close, I mean—"

"I get it!"

The Lombax ran out of the room before Nefarious could elaborate any further, and it only occurred to him after the scientist's raucous laughter was finally out of range that the same could be said of the supervillain and his butler, but he decided this lapse was for the best, or else he might not still be alive right now to think about it.


Perhaps Nefarious had been right about one thing, which Ratchet knew wasn't possible for someone as deranged as the supervillain, which could only mean he was not really seeing what he thought he was seeing.

With the gloom of the abandoned labs, it didn't take much effort for his eyes to adjust when he arrived in the dimly lit kitchen to find the table adorned with a meager variety of food, though clearly arranged with what the one responsible surely thought of as care, all of which, the fruits, both sliced and whole, and a scrawny roast chicken likely past its expiration date (the only other survivor when the plants took over, aside from the toads, it would seem, which only made him wonder just how vicious the chickens must be around here…and how she had managed to catch one), were lit by the candles Ophelia thought so highly of and set lovingly against a bouquet of limp flowers and fern fronds draped about the edges of one of the buckets Lawrence no longer needed to collect rainwater. And Clank was nowhere to be found.

Yes, just as the scientist had said, mental though he may be, it looked quite a bit like a date. But, then again, she was strangely open about her foot malady with Clank and Lawrence, and surely she wasn't trying to start something with them.

He sure hoped not.

At least she had put no effort into fixing up her appearance, as her hair had gained the ability to defy gravity even more than ever, not unlike the embarrassing fluff his fur had taken on thanks to the intense humidity ever present in the air, and she still appeared to have pieces of junk she had fished from a trash bin tied to her clothing. Not that she had any other options of dress way out on an abandoned planet in a distant corner of the galaxy, but whatever made him feel better about the whole thing.

"Hey, so what do you think?" She opened her arms in one grand sweep to gesture at the attempted "feast" set out before her.

"Yeah. Nice. You know," he rubbed his stomach, a distraction as his eyes searched for an escape route, "I'm not…really that hungry. I, uh, had a big lunch, and…"

"Sit."

"O-okay." He sat down in the seat across from her, wincing as it made a dull screech on the tile floor as he adjusted its distance from the table. The bouquet blocked his view of her, to his great relief, until a hand appeared and pushed it aside, and her grinning face was again revealed like some unsettling version of peek-a-boo.

"Sorry. I may have gone a bit overboard, but we may as well do something special to celebrate our imminent escape. Even if no one else is bothering to join us."

"Well," his eyes scanned the table, as much to decide what to try first as to avoid looking at her, "the other three are either robots are psychopaths, so I guess that would explain it."

"I'm glad we're normal, at least."

He picked up a few slices of banana with a fork that she had cut unnecessarily thin before grabbing a bowl of what looked rather similar to mashed potatoes, but likely wasn't. "And," he continued as he began to spoon the pale mush onto his plate, "I can't guarantee leaving this place will be as easy as you think. Nefarious," he glanced up to catch her gazing at him with her cheek propped up on one fist and her skin turned orange from the candlelight (perhaps the scientist was saner than he looked, after all; best not to think about it), "he…uh…what is this?"

"Tapioca. It was actually for dessert."

"Ah." He put the bowl down and pushed the gloppy mess to the side with his fork so as to quarantine it from the rest of his meal. "Well, as-as I was saying, Nefarious built something…" he stood to more easily carve off some of the chicken with a large knife that was far too much within arm's reach of her than he would've liked, "I-I don't really know what it does, actually." He sat down and nibbled at some of his newly acquired salmonella (er, meat), as he continued, "Basically, he built something to help us off the planet, but I don't really know if it'll work or not."

"I see. Well," she grabbed a black fruit he recalled being like a rather oversized grape with fuzzy skin and shoved the whole thing in her mouth, though the dim lighting concealed her chewed food far less than he expected, "he's supposed to be a genius. I would think he'd know what he's doing."

"You'd be surprised how dumb geniuses can be."

She shrugged one shoulder. "I guess it's good I'm not a genius, then."

"Hmm." Finally, something they could agree on.

Ratchet ventured another bite of chicken, a bigger one this time, and chewed slowly. It seemed okay. A bit overcooked, but that might kill off whatever diseases might have accumulated during its time sitting about unrefrigerated. (Though, honestly, directing some of their electricity to the fridge might've been a good idea. On second thought, he'd rather get food poisoning from his dinner than become dinner to something that had decided to sneak up on him in the dark.) Reflex made him look back over his shoulder as Ophelia leaned forward to grab the chicken's right leg, and he winced as she twisted it about until, with a crack, it came free from its former owner.

She got to munching on her chicken leg with the enthusiasm of a dog gnawing on a bone, and he turned to his own plate to decide what he'd like to gag over next. He stabbed a small, round piece of fruit with the end of his fork and held it up to eye level. "So, Ophelia…do you have any…family to speak of?"

She stopped chewing on her meat to stare at him, one stray chunk hanging from the corner of her mouth before it, too, disappeared into her hungry maw. "Everyone's got a family, silly. Don't you know that?"

"Well, I mean…what are they like? Don't…don't you want to go back to them once this is all done? Instead of, you know, wandering the galaxy for something that can't be found?"

"It can be found, and I will find it. I haven't…I haven't visited my family in years, and I don't intend to until the job's done." She pointed her chicken leg at him (frankly, he was surprised she had thought to cut the feet off, but was immensely grateful for it). "And all your negativity won't stop me."

"All right, fine. I was just asking." He stuck the fruit in his mouth and promptly spit it back out again. If they actually had the lights on, he would've noticed it was covered in hairs!

Ratchet looked up to catch one corner of her lips pull up in a grin, and she shook her head. "What about you?" she began. "You've told me about all these grand adventures you've been on, like a gallant and furry knight, but you've never mentioned home." She sat up straighter to address him in the most regal voice one dressed in trash could manage. "Where do you hail from, brave knight?"

The Lombax arched an eyebrow at her, and he nearly answered several times, but was kept from doing so whenever her attempt at a noble exterior was momentarily replaced by giggles she just barely had under control. "I'm from Veldin. It's-it's not where my family's from, but it's where I grew up. I…yeah, that's about it."

"Well, where's your family?"

"I don't know. Look, can we just talk about something else? My…" he gestured at his plate, "my food's getting cold—"

"Most of it's fruit. Do they eat warm fruit on Veldlin—"

"It's Veldin, and—"

"And you're the one who brought up the whole matter of families in the first place, so—"

"I know, and now I'm the one saying we should drop it, okay?"

"Okay!"

Ratchet tried to still his breathing, and he took to poking at the uneaten fruit and chicken and tapioca on his plate with his fork, his measly appetite fizzling to a cinder. He glanced up just once more when Ophelia burst out with, "Fine!" but she could spur no further argument from him. At least, not like that.

"So, if Nefarious is going to help us off the planet, doesn't that mean we should help him?"

The Lombax's jaw grew tight, and his head rose to face her once more, and this time he had no trouble meeting her gaze. "How many times are you going to bring that up?"

"Until you give me the answer I want. And in case you're not sure what that is, I'll give you a hint. It starts with a Y. And it ends with an S. You can basically get away with making it a two-letter word, and it'll still pretty much work—"

"Why do you care so much?"

"Because, unlike you, I don't like the thought of just leaving someone behind to die…hey!"

"You don't get it, do you?" Ratchet pushed his plate forward and rose from the table. "Nefarious is evil. The reason you need to search for peace, and the reason you'll never find it, is because of people like him. He makes it his job to hurt other people, and I'm not going to help someone that's caused so much misery for others. Is any of this making sense to you?"

By now, Ophelia had grown stiff-backed in her seat, and she stared at him with wide eyes, no sign of her usual nonchalance. She opened her mouth once, then twice, and said, "Then, why did you never stop him?"

"I did stop him. Plenty of times—"

"No." She shook her head. "No, you didn't. Why did you never kill him?"

The temperature of the room seemed to drop with this question, to hear something he had faced numerous times in the past, in the secret hollow of his mind and in muted and solemn conversations with Clank, expressed so simply, so out in the open. He had tried. He had tried and succeeded in stopping the supervillain many times in the past, and if it had been a battle to the death, well, better Nefarious than himself. Or Clank. But, when you were in the middle of such a struggle…

Once the battle had ended and the adrenaline of the moment was over, he didn't like to admit that he had just tried to kill someone.

Her voice lowered to almost a whisper, "Why don't you do it now?"

Ratchet's jaw finally started working again, and he choked out a strangled, "What?"

Ophelia pressed her lips together. "Why don't you? The universe isn't safe from people like him until they're no longer alive to harm anyone else. Even prison's not enough. People escape from prison."

"Well, I-ah" Ratchet blinked at her, "…now?"

She gave a half shrug, half wobble of her head. "Well…" Her brow furrowed at the look of stunned horror on the Lombax's face. "Oh, don't look at me like I'm horrible. He's horrible, so what's it matter what you do to horrible people?"

"It…I don't know." He ran a hand over his head. "I-I don't think I can just—"

Ophelia narrowed her eyes. "When you told me about your many adventures, the most important part was all the people you helped, which was only possible because of all the bad people you stopped. But, what's the point if it's not permanent?"

"Don't…don't tell me how I should and shouldn't help people! You don't even know half of what Clank and I have done for the galaxy, so I can do it however I darn well please! And if that includes not…stabbing Nefarious with this carving knife," he reached forward and brandished the blade in question, "when he's just as screwed as we are, then that's my choice!"

She leaned back in her chair with crossed arms and rested her head on the backrest. "I doubt he'd show you the same courtesy," she told the ceiling.

"Yeah, but I don't plan on becoming like him."

She sighed. "Ratchet, I worry about you."

"Why should you worry about me? You hardly know me?"

"That same kindness could get you killed one day."

"It's not kindness. I just…try to do what's right."

Ophelia released a breath deep enough that he almost wondered if she had been storing it up throughout his entire outburst. "Just…eat your dinner."

"I'm not hungry."

"Me, neither."

She said no more, and neither did he, and he uncurled the fingers he didn't realize until now had been tightly gripping the carving knife, and the object fell to the floor with a metallic clatter.

A crash erupted from somewhere he couldn't pinpoint, an eruption of noise that was so powerful that it felt like the very room itself shook, and he only suspected it didn't when not one item so much as rocked on the tabletop.

"What was that?" Ratchet asked as he ran to the light switch.

"A lightning strike? It sounded like it hit the building!"

He flicked the switch this way and that, but the space remained as dark as ever. "It looks like the power's out."

"It came back last time," she said as she wandered over to join him, and they both nearly jumped into the other's arms when a third voice came from around the corner.

"Ratchet, is everyone all right?"

They both looked down as Clank appeared before them with his green optics clearly visible in the darkness, and clearly slanted in concern.

"I believe the facilities have been—"

"Yeah, I think we already figured that out. You think..." Ratchet glanced between them, a question he didn't want to ask ready on his lips, "you think we should check it out?"

"The lightning might have started a fire," the little robot said, and Ophelia dashed back to the table to grab the carving knife from the floor.

"I don't think a knife's going to do much good against a fire," the Lombax said, and he couldn't help but flinch to see her armed again. If he struck her with his wrench fast enough…

She licked off a piece of chicken still clinging to the blade. "If we're going into the labs, I want to be prepared for whatever might have gotten stirred up. You ready?"


This chapter, like the ones before, has also undergone some major changes. An entire section was deleted from the beginning, and the conversation between Ratchet and Ophelia has been completely rewritten. I think it's much better. No, I know it's much better.

Please review, fellow organics!