Hi X. It's getting harder to write. Thanks for sticking with me.

I don't own.

A Brief History of Time

"Holiday, I heard that you, Rex, and Bobo had a run in with Providence in Paris. Are you all right?"

"We're fine. Believe it or not Caesar just let us go."

"…Well, I guess that's one plus for him."

"They were interested in Van Kleiss, not us."

"So Van Kleiss is alive?"

"You won't believe it but that vortex that sent Rex 6 months forward into the future, deposited Van Kleiss several thousand years in the past. He's been in ancient Rome, Egypt, and god-only-knows-where else. Who knows what damage he did to the timeline."

"Hmmm, I think the timeline will right itself. Otherwise we wouldn't be here."

"Have you been reading my science journals again?"

"Only when I can't sleep."

"Very funny. Your sense of humor hasn't change."

"I try. So was it a time machine?"

"No, Van Kleiss built a nanite preservation pod to keep himself alive throughout the ages."

"So he could live forever?"

"Well, no, it wouldn't have kept him alive indefinitely but more like a stasis chamber to keep his nanites from disintegrating until he could get back to his own time. Remember Gharun Set?"

"How could I forget? His mummy dogs nearly got us."

"He was probably an experiment to perfect the process but ultimately it was flawed. Van Kleiss must have used the research to perfect the preservation process for himself."

"Interesting, I suppose. But now what?"

"Good question. Providence took him into custody."

"I think that's a bad idea."

"Well, he was mad when we discovered him. He was babbling about something being after him…"

"And?"

"And it turned out to be Breach. He had tethered her to him and mistook her for a force sent to eliminate him from the timeline. So all this time he was running away from his own creation."

"Can't say that I feel much sympathy for him."

"Neither do I. But it's ironic."

"I don't like the fact that Black Knight now has access to him."

"I don't think he's a threat anymore, considering his frame of mind."

"One thing I've learned is that mad geniuses always find a way to cause problems."

"Quite the pessimist, aren't you?"

"That's how I've survived this long."

"Be that as it may, we don't have any real facilities to hold criminals, much less insane ones."

"Maybe it's time we change that."

"What do you mean?"

"There's that empty sector of the dam that no one uses. We can put holding cells there."

"You want us to waste resources to make a prison? Wouldn't it be more cost effective to have Providence incarcerate the criminal element?"

"They can have the run-of-the-mill criminals. But there are certain people that I want to keep out of Black Knight's hands."

"I'll run it by White. We have several containment tubes still but I would need to find a generator to power them. And we need to remove the debris that's there."

"I think it would be a good investment. I was wary about relying too much on Providence and now that they've stepped up plans, I think we need to step up our game too."

"I remember you were worried about letting Providence take Valve. But so far we haven't heard hide nor hair of him."

"So far…"

"There's that pessimism again. But you know, you may be right. It wouldn't hurt to have an option of containing prisoners we don't want Black Knight to have."

"We should go present this to White together."

"All right. Let me finish up here."

"Thank you."

"For what?"

"For hearing me out."

"Oh, well… we always take what the other says into consideration."

"I appreciate that."

"It's the least I can do."

"No, the least you could do is nothing."

"All done. Let's go."

"After you."