Author's Note:
Ch. 49 posted today, Monday, Feb. 4
Ch. 50 will be posted Tuesday, Feb. 5
I hate being stuck on this airplane. Myka took another tissue and wiped her eyes. I hate it.
"Pete, wake up," she said hoarsely.
With his face still buried in his pillow, he groaned. "More bad news?"
"Yes," she said, "did you get a bad vibe in your sleep?"
He shifted in his seat to squint at her. "No, just a mildly bad dream." His eyes widened. "Hey, why are you crying? Is Claudia OK?"
She nodded. "She's OK. Everyone is still safe, for the moment. But the B&B." She paused. "Marcus set fire to the Bed & Breakfast."
"Fire? He burned down our house?" Pete stared at her. He closed his eyes and rubbed his face. "Oh, man."
The B&B is gone, she thought. What if more events go badly? Will we even survive, this time?
"We thought we could fix everything." Myka wiped another tear away. "This timeline was supposed to turn out better."
He took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. "It will. Everything will turn out fine, in the end. We will fix everything." He tilted his head. "Almost everything. But I know we can do this."
She tried to smile. "Is it your turn to be the voice of encouragement?"
Pete nodded. "Losing the B&B is another surprise. It's also scary. But this time, the house was empty when Marcus arrived. Leena and Mrs. Frederic were not in danger. That's an important improvement over the previous timeline, right?"
"Yes, we used the Pocketwatch for time travel, so we could save more people," she said.
"Exactly. That's what you and I are working on," he said. "We'll stop Sykes so he can't hurt anyone else. This will all be over soon."
Soon Sykes will be dead. But until he's dead, this timeline feels like a nightmare. Myka crossed her arms tightly. "You said you had a bad dream. What was it about?"
"A memory, actually. You and I were standing in the old laboratory at the university. We caught up with Artie and Claudia, but they had already restarted Joshua's teleportation experiment. We stood there with the lights swirling around us."
"You mentioned that scene earlier," she said.
"All that dimensional turbulence swirling around the room," he said, "was loud and really memorable. We waited for Artie and Claudia to reappear. When we saw them again, they brought Joshua and the Compass with them."
I saw that memory, too, in my dream, she thought. "You didn't see Mrs. Frederic in your dream, did you?"
"Nope, no Mrs. F, and no message," he said. "But we know that's what she was talking about in her dream-message to you."
She furrowed her brow. "What about her message?"
"Back to the beginning. Find Claudia and Joshua," he quoted. "Mrs. Frederic was talking about Josh's experiment, with the Rheticus Compass."
The Compass was the beginning? Myka stared at him. "Artie met Claudia and Joshua, 14 years ago, because Joshua had a dangerous artifact."
"That was the beginning," he said, "the beginning of their association with Artie, and with artifacts."
"And with Warehouse 13." She studied his face in amazement. "Did you figure this out while you were sleeping?"
Pete shrugged. "I thought it was obvious. Mrs. Frederic's message was pretty specific."
Myka's head felt a bit like it was swirling in her jumbled thoughts. "OK, but how is the message relevant right now? Sykes is attacking us, not MacPherson. Sykes is carrying the Artifact-Bomb, not the Compass. And Claudia is safe, with Artie."
"That's true. Maybe the message isn't for today, exactly." He paused.
"What?" she asked.
"What about Joshua?"
She looked at him quizzically.
"Do we know that Joshua safe?" he asked. "Where is Joshua?"
Myka's pulse sped up. "With everything else going on, I didn't think about Joshua." She grabbed the Farnsworth, pressed the comm button, and shouted, "Artie!"
Mrs. Frederic arrived outside the entrance to the old Warehouse hospital at the same time Dr. Calder and Leena each steered a pushcart of supplies toward the door.
"Claudia has been shocked a second time by Steve's death," Leena said to the doctor. "She has no intention of letting Steve go. And now her house burned down. How is she supposed to cope with all this?"
Mrs. Frederic opened the door for them and they steered their pushcarts into a short hallway. They entered the first door on the left, which opened into a large room with hospital beds along one wall.
"We can leave this here for now," Vanessa said. "Thank you."
Leena held up a tall thermos. "I brought enough soup for all of you. Claudia needs to eat something."
Vanessa took the thermos and held out her other hand. "Will you let me try? I want to talk to Claudia."
Leena handed her another thermos. "Good luck," she said softly. "You'll need it." She nodded at Mrs. Frederic and left.
Mrs. Frederic followed Vanessa into the hallway, but waited in the doorway as the doctor entered the next room.
In this room, Claudia stood by the wall in front of an opened electrical panel. "All your diagnostic machines are plugged in, and the power is on," she said. "I think you're all set." Claudia picked up the metal cover and closed it over the panel.
"I appreciate all your help," Vanessa said. "This is great. Thank you."
"Just don't mention the name of the madman, please," Claudia said bitterly. "I know you're a doctor and you're sworn to help everyone. But your new patient, he's totally evil. And, by the way, he's on his way to blow up the Warehouse with all of us inside."
Claudia sighed tiredly. "Sorry. You said 'thank you.' Now I say, 'you're welcome.'"
"Understood," Vanessa said gently.
"I knew you had some clinic space, up by the office," Claudia said. "I didn't know the Warehouse had its own hospital out here on the main floor." She glanced toward Mrs. Frederic. "Yet another important location that I learned about only today. Important rooms and features hidden inside Warehouse 13, where I work, every day."
"The hospital unit was closed up more than 10 years ago," Vanessa said.
"You know what else was closed up? Under the floor?" Claudia asked. "A large reservoir of Purple Goo. I just learned about it today, looking at a map of the Warehouse. Before that, a long time ago, the reservoir was a huge aquarium."
"The old Aquarium," Vanessa smiled. "I'd forgotten all about that."
"You know about the aquarium?"
Vanessa nodded. "I worked here, a long time ago, remember?"
"That's right," Claudia said. "Then maybe you could answer my questions."
"I can try. What do you have questions about?" Vanessa asked.
Claudia put one hand on top of her head, then let it drop. "Everything," she said. "I have a million questions, but the answers are Top Secret. Then, as it turns out, some of the questions are classified, too, so I don't even know what questions to ask."
Vanessa waited for the young woman to continue.
Claudia glanced toward the doorway, where Mrs. Frederic stood silently.
"Here's a question," Claudia said. "How old is Mrs. Frederic?"
"I'm sorry," Vanessa said, "but you must realize I can't answer that."
"Because it's classified."
"Because as her doctor, and for my patient's privacy, I cannot disclose her age," Vanessa said. "Also," she said quietly, "it's impolite to ask a lady about her age."
Claudia looked away and crossed her arms self-consciously.
"However, I could tell you about the old Aquarium," Vanessa said, trying to sound upbeat. "Don't you want to ask me about the creature?"
"You know?" Claudia asked in genuine surprise. "How do you know about the Loch Ness Monster?"
"Because I worked on that mission." Vanessa picked up a thermos and handed it to Claudia. "Here's your soup." She picked up the other thermos, and shook her head. "That crazy mission was almost a complete disaster. Almost. I'm still amazed the poor creature survived our attempts to save it."
Vanessa paused. She poured some soup into the thermos cup and took a sip.
Claudia glanced toward Mrs. Frederic and back to Vanessa. "I know a little about the Loch Ness Monster. This is the part where you say, you can't tell me much, because the case is classified."
"No," Vanessa said, "but it's a really long story. I'm trying to organize a short version in my head." She took another sip of soup. "Also, you have to promise me not to hack into the old casefiles."
Claudia nodded. "Because they're classified."
"No, for privacy reasons," Vanessa said. "One of the agents from that case is retired. He wants nothing to do with Warehouse 13. He's even older than I am, and he's adamant about his privacy. Just promise me, OK?"
The young woman shrugged. "OK, I promise." She opened her thermos and poured some soup into the cup.
Vanessa smiled slightly. "For many years, the creature in Loch Ness lived undisturbed. The only people who saw her were local residents. But by the 1970s, the world had become a much smaller place. With TV, the whole world seemed connected because news traveled so much faster. Also, cameras became portable, and affordable."
"People who saw the creature might even catch it on film," Claudia said.
"Also in the 1970s," Vanessa said, "more people had money and mobility for travel."
"Tourists spotted the Loch Ness Monster," Claudia said, "and it grew more famous."
"The creature's existence was such an interesting question that scientific expeditions were being launched."
"They searched the Loch and tried to locate the creature with sonar, right?"
Vanessa nodded. "One of our agents was so interested in the creature, he tried to turn it into an official mission. He was concerned anyway about boat traffic and sonar signals negatively affecting the creature. But when public discovery looked imminent, he insisted that Warehouse 13 intervene to protect the creature."
"Did he really think he could snag the creature and hide it somewhere else?"
"He was determined to try," Vanessa said. "Of course, the Regents denied his requests, mainly for logistical reasons. The agent decided to ignore their decision. He persuaded a few fellow Warehouse agents, including me, to risk our careers to help him. He even drafted at least one person from another law-enforcement agency. We caught the creature, and brought it to North America." Vanessa held up her cup and drank more of her soup.
"Oh, no. You can't stop there," Claudia said. "You're leaving out too much of the story."
Vanessa smiled and turned toward Mrs. Frederic.
