Peabody smiled as he looked at the device in his paws.
Given he had only had about 24 hours to rapidly come up with a design that was functional, aesthetics were not as important. So, while it looked like a sloppily thrown together metal detector, it seemed to work. It had detected the presence of a miniscule black hole only a few miles away.
The moment Richmond had mentioned singularity, ideas of building another WABAC had gone out the window, and Peabody was determined to fix the timeline by reversing whatever Richmond had done to it using that singularity, which would involve closing it. That was the easiest solution, and it would prevent another incident like the one that happened a month ago. Only this time it could be worse, this was a black hole, that had only been a wormhole that refused to close.
Peabody had no idea where the machine Richmond had built was located, the black hole detector told him in what general direction it was, but Richmond had most definitely placed security measures around it, so he had no idea how he was going to access it.
Suddenly the intercom in his lab went off and he heard the voice of his receptionist, Ashley crackle through the speaker.
"Mr. Peabody? Are you there?"
He went over to the button and pressed it. "Yes Ashley, what is it?"
"There's a…boy here to see you?" She sounded confused. "He says his name is Sherman."
Peabody's eyes widened. "Let him up."
"Yes Mr. Peabody."
Peabody walked out of his lab and over the elevator carrying his device. Soon the elevator opened and Sherman stepped out.
Peabody smiled. "Hello Sherman, you're just in time to see my-" No sooner were the words out of his mouth before Sherman interrupted him.
"Do you really not care about me?" He asked with a scowl on his face.
Peabody was speechless, he opened his mouth and for a millisecond, nothing came out. Why would Sherman think such a thing?
"Yes of course I do! What on Earth makes you think such a thing?" he questioned, confused.
"You said you aren't going to adopt me." Sherman said, frowning.
Now Peabody was really confused. "I- I have never said any such thing Sherman."
"Yes you did, you said so in the newspaper."
"In th-?" Then it hit him. Sherman must have read whatever Ms. Jackson had written for her article.
He collected his thoughts and then spoke again, during which time Sherman had been staring at him despondently, brows creased.
"Sherman… I hope you understand I had to say whatever would cause the least amount of questions and media presence. Given of course the situation I have told you and the Harpers about, we cannot have people asking questions, that will hinder myself from fixing the timeline."
He smiled and put a paw on Sherman's shoulder. "Of course I care about you, it is because I care about you that I am trying to fix the timeline."
Slightly reassured, but still not having told Mr. Peabody everything yet, Sherman suddenly blurted out. "A strange man talked to me today at school."
Peabody's smile fell. "What? What did he want?"
"He's the one who gave me the newspaper and said that you don't really care about me and he knew about the timeline problem."
Peabody immediately knew who this strange man could be but still needed to confirm it. "What did he look like? Did he have brown hair and brown eyes? Maybe 30 years old?"
Sherman nodded.
Peabody growled and turned around, beginning to pace. Sherman felt slight déjà vu as he did so.
"Who does he think he is? Walking onto school grounds, talking to children, and then he has the nerve to tell you that I don't care?"
He let out a grunt of frustration shook his balled-up paws. "I swear the sooner we get the timeline fixed and that man out of our life the better."
"Who was he?" Sherman asked.
"Richmond Wolf, my…for lack of a better term, professional rival. He and I have been at odds ever since we've met. He is the one who caused the timeline change. Did anything else happen while you were talking?"
"Yeah, he got a call from somebody and said something about gravity dampeners? I dunno, he seemed anxious about it and quickly left after that."
Peabody gasped and suddenly pulled the black hole detector from around his back where he had slung it and pulled Sherman over to the elevator.
"Then we must hurry Sherman! The fate of the entire world, not just us, rests in the balance." He quickly pressed the button for the ground floor.
"Why? What's going to happen?!" Sherman asked.
"Richmond used a micro singularity, or what you might call a black hole to power his time device, and if he sounded anxious from what you said, he might be losing control of it and who knows what could happen! We need to help him fix it immediately!"
The doors opened at the ground floor and Peabody rushed out. "Come Sherman quick!"
After a slight hesitation Sherman quickly ran after him.
They walked for a couple of minutes, Sherman mainly following Peabody, and Peabody mainly looking at his black hole detector, which was making a beeping noise and had a radar-like screen on it. Sherman had had to stop Peabody from walking out into the street following it multiple times.
Peabody suddenly stopped and put a paw out and Sherman almost ran into it.
"What is it?" he asked.
Peabody turned around and noticed an empty garbage bag floating through the air, rapidly passing them and continuing on down the street, moving among the many various pedestrians on their evening commute.
"Sherman, what was strange about that grocery bag?" he asked, turning to face him.
Sherman didn't know, it looked like a normal floating garbage bag. "I dunno… it was floating…through the air…like normal?" he said, raising an eyebrow.
Peabody held a paw up. "There is no wind, or at the very least, not enough to make that bag move that fast… maybe this will be a better demonstration…"
He bent down and picked up a pebble that was lying on the sidewalk. He stood up, held out his paw and dropped it.
The pebble fell to the ground but did not fall straight down. It fell at an angle, hitting the ground just to the duo's left.
"The black hole's gravity is getting stronger, and while we can't feel the effects of its tidal forces yet because of our larger mass, we certainly will soon. Come Sherman, time is of the essence." He pulled his black hole detector out again and began to follow it, running down the street with Sherman following closely behind.
They finally reached what appeared to be the building that was housing the black hole. Peabody's black hole device said it was inside the building somewhere. It was a lone modern looking building situated near the piers on the Hudson River. As they walked to the doorway, they noticed there was a card key lock attached to it.
"How are we going to get in?" Sherman asked.
Peabody took a closer look at it and pulled on the door. It opened without issue.
"By simply walking in." he said, looking at Sherman in surprise.
As they both walked in they noticed that the light on the lock was green rather than red, indicating the door was unlocked. As they walked further in they noticed was that the building was completely empty. There was no one else in sight.
They also noticed that the black hole's tidal forces were beginning to affect them and could feel a small gravitational force acting on their bodies. From it, they were able to determine that the black hole was below them somewhere, so they began looking for a door leading down.
They walked further into the building, past the silver metallic reception desk and into a hallway.
At the end of the hall Peabody noticed an industrial door with a push bar that didn't have an exit sign. There was another key card lock attached to it and it was also green, indicating the door was unlocked.
"Why does this guy leave all his doors unlocked?" Sherman wondered aloud as they ran over to it and Peabody pushed it open. On the other side of the door was a metal staircase that led downwards.
"I have a feeling Richmond didn't leave them all unlocked on purpose…" Peabody said as he walked onto the metal staircase and began descending with Sherman following.
They reached the bottom which opened into a rocky tunnel. As they walked along it an alarm ringing met their ears and they could see flashing red alarm lights. They continued to follow the tunnel and it led to a control room where they saw the source of the red alarm lights flashing. All along the bottom edge of the room there were panels and computer screens and along the top edge were windows looking out and opposite them there was another door leading out.
"I believe the reason for the alarms and lights flashing is because the black hole has gotten out of control, but where is Richmond…?" Peabody wondered aloud.
They ran over to the other door and opened it and stepped out.
Sherman immediately gasped. They were standing in what appeared to be a very large hollowed out rocky cavern. There were various levels of metal catwalks surrounding the outer area that were connected via steep metal stairs. Industrial grade metal boxes of equipment were stacked up against each other near the rocky wall, and in the center, fairly below them, was a large open space with what Sherman could only guess was the black hole in question.
The space was large, but the black hole itself was small, about the size of a basketball. It was hovering in midair, and was completely black, surrounded by a large sphere of crisscrossing metal beams which he could only guess were the only devices that were keeping it in check.
Along with the klaxon alarms Peabody could also hear the creaking of metal as the tidal forces acted on it.
As they both looked around Peabody suddenly noticed Richmond leaning against another little control panel halfway around the room, frantically typing on the keyboard and flipping switches and pressing buttons.
"Richmond!" he yelled as he began to run around the catwalk toward him, Sherman following.
"Hector! What are you doing here?!" Richmond said, looking at him with wide eyes for a brief second before turning back to the panel he was working at and raising his voice over the blaring alarms and creaking metal.
"I determined you were using a black hole to power your time machine and it appears I was correct, and I am here to help you fix it! Do you have a reset button or kill switch!?"
"No! we are not resetting everything! I can fix it!" Richmond said angrily. "It is not past the point of no return!"
As he spoke Peabody noticed his eyes flit over to a lever that was sitting near the edge of the panel he was working at. Peabody deduced that it must be the reset lever and ran towards it and tried to flip it, but before he could, Richmond quickly reacted and punched him, making him go flying backward.
"Mr. Peabody!" Sherman cried out, rushing over to him.
"I don't think you heard me. I said I can fix it." Richmond glared at Peabody
Peabody slowly got up, feeling the place where Richmond had punched him. He wasn't bleeding, so that was good. He glared at him.
"Richmond, I intend to reset the timeline with or without your help." Loathing what he did next, but realizing it was possibly the only thing he could do in order to stop Richmond, he suddenly jumped forward and Richmond met him, and they began to fight, exchanging blows.
Sherman suddenly noticed he was having a hard time staying in one place, he was slowly being pulled toward the black hole, his shoes scraping along the metal flooring. Luckily there was a railing right in front of him that he grabbed that prevented him from being pulled further toward it.
Suddenly at the same moment, they all heard a loud shattering of breaking glass and Sherman gasped as he quickly looked behind him.
The windows of the control room had given in to the black hole's gravitational forces and shattered. Headed straight for him were some very large pieces of glass, their sharp edges glinting in the lab's bright light.
Peabody watched in horror as the large pieces of glass headed straight for Sherman, who was directly in their path towards the black hole.
He quickly dodged a punch from Richmond and ran for Sherman.
Calculations ran frantically in his mind's eye as he ran on all fours.
Sherman was barely able to see Mr. Peabody running towards him before he suddenly felt a push and felt himself falling to the side. "Mr. Peabody!" Sherman yelled as the beagle pushed the red-head away from the oncoming debris.
Sherman heard a loud dog-like yelp in pain and looked behind him to see Peabody lying against the railing, multiple pieces of glass embedded in him, his snow-white fur quickly turning red.
Suddenly the room shook and some of the metal support beams began to buckle. Richmond had returned to the control panel and began typing furiously onto the keyboard.
SUBJECT: S. PEABODY: DELETE MEMORY CACHE? Y/N
Richmond typed Y and pressed enter.
WARNING! MEMORY CACHE WILL NOT BE RESTORED IN EVENT OF TIMELINE RESET. ARE YOU SURE YOU WANT TO CONTINUE? Y/N
Richmond quickly typed Y without hesitation and pressed enter again.
Sherman ran up to Peabody.
"Mr. Peabody! I-I'm sorry! W-what should I do? What should I do?" His hands shook in fear as they hovered over the pieces of glass embedded in Peabody's stomach, unsure if he should pull them out or leave them in. That glass had been meant for him. He suddenly felt tears beginning to fall from his eyes. He couldn't explain them.
Peabody's words were punctuated by occasional whines in pain and ragged breaths.
"Sherman…you must…reset the timeline." He took Sherman's hand in one paw.
"I…love you Sherman. I promise you… everything will be alright." He said, smiling weakly at him.
Sherman looked at him in shock. "But what will happen?!"
"Everything will be… as it should be…" Peabody said, his eyes slowly opening and closing, his paw slipped from Sherman's hand.
Sherman looked at him for a few seconds more and then ran towards the reset lever, gripping it in both hands.
"What are you doing Sherman!?" Richmond pleaded as the boy reached the lever. "I can still fix this! He's a dog! A DOG! Don't you want a real family? A real father? He only saw you as charity, as just another good notch in his collar! Why would you go back to that…Who would want a dog as a father!?"
Sherman's eyes flickered with a barrage of emotions. Was that true? Is this all a lie? Would Peabody only see him as charity…
Who wants a dog for a father?
But as he looked over at Peabody, the life quickly draining from his body, Sherman knew he had his answer.
And so, with tears streaming down his face, he gave a hard look at Richmond. "Me."
He pulled the lever.
