Chapter Eleven: Meanwhile in another part of town....

"Oh wow!"

Harper stopped in the doorway and stared. For a few seconds he forgot everything else as he was in awe of the amazing machinery in the room. Then he stumbled forward into the room as he was pushed roughly from behind.

"Hey!"

"Hey yourself. I didn't ask you to stop right in my way now, did I?"

Pitch gave him a half-hearted frown, but there was no real menace in it.

"These machines are built exclusively for travelling between dimensions?" Harper asked.

"Yup. Don't take all night now, I'm not really supposed to have access to this room... really. The guards might wake up."

He didn't have to say that twice. Harper ran over to the nearest console and started figuring the system out. It was simple. Well, obviously it was amazingly complex, but for a genius like him, yeah, nothing to it. Getting back to the Andromeda from here would be a piece of cake. Finding Beka and Tyr on the other hand, that might just prove a little bit trickier.

*

"Damn it!"

Beka felt like slamming her fist straight into the concrete wall in front of her. But that would be stupid now, wouldn't it? Almost as stupid as some other activities she had partaken in recently. Damn it, damn it, damn it! She almost wished she had not found that little, round coin-like object. That little token that said "NCS-1". She almost wished that it hadn't been so damn obvious where it had come from and what it was. A Shuttle token. The crest on the back looked just like the symbol in the station. NCS obviously stood for New City Shuttle. And the one, well, that was one-way. It had been in her pocket. Put there by someone she really didn't want to spend a one-way journey getting back to. Although, maybe Pitch had put it there so she could get back into town after leaving EterniVision. Whatever. She still had his stupid pass card as well. But she was so not going back there. She had to find Tyr and Harper and running around like a headless chicken in a strange city was so much more favourable than spending any more time at the most likely place they would turn up. With that.... man. Even though it was now the middle of the night, dark and pissing rain.

She was fuming on the inside as her feet were doing their own thing, bringing her across the road, up the stairs and into the Shuttle station. What the hell? This was just stupid. Harper and Tyr would turn up at the gates of EterniVision sooner or later, she knew that for a fact. They were not stupid. Not stupid like she had been when she had... nevermind.

She took the small, metal token out of her pocket and put it in the slot on the turnstile. The machinery gave up a small beep as the little thing clattered its way through the insides. Then there was a plink as it fell out in the cup underneath. He'd given her a bogey token on top of everything else?! This really was the last straw... but the bars moved around easily as she walked through and she picked up the token and put it back in her pocket. She should have known it was some kind of cheat. A pirate token. She shouldn't have expected anything less from him really.

*

Tyr woke up by the sound of a gasping, choked cry. What time was it? He felt so completely disoriented. He was in some kind of warehouse. It was so cold. This was where Milon... stayed now, he guessed. Like a homeless person or something. Was he not supposed to be an incredibly famous filmstar? Whatever he was, it was clear he was in a lot of pain. Tyr sat up in the dirty old armchair where he had fallen asleep. Milon was lying on an equally filthy mattress on the floor. He had told Tyr that despite what this place looked like, it was actually the "safest place for him to be right now." Whatever that meant.

Tyr walked over to Milon's side and kneeled down. The boy was shaking uncontrollably. His face was so pale it was almost transparent. He did not look good.

"Are you dying?" Tyr asked.

Milon shook his head, tears streaming down his face.

"No... not yet... please, Tyr, can you give me that shot? It's in my jacket..."

Tyr searched his pocket and found the syringe filled with orange liquid. He had to hold Milon's arm hard to keep it from shaking as he stuck the needle in his vein and pressed the plunger carefully. Then he sat back and watched as the trembling slowly subsided. Milon sat up and wiped his face with his hand.

"Thanks... I don't know what I would've done if you hadn't been here... it's never been this bad before... I don't know what to do..."

He looked so afraid that Tyr could not help feeling sorry for him and want to help him, despite the whole drug episode earlier.

"Milon. I know what you told me earlier, but I still think you should tell... your friend. You should not have to go through this alone."

"I can't... I just can't... he's had enough pain of his own."

Tyr said nothing, just stood up and looked around in the room. It was truly depressing. Cold, dirty and desolate. Only a very bad person would deserve ending their life here, alone, in pain. Milon certainly did not.

"I need to get back to the Andromeda," Tyr said, "can you help me or not?"

"Yes. I promised, didn't I?"

He stood up and stretched, suddenly seeming to be fine. Tyr knew it was only the drugs that kept him going, and the fact that they were so effective was more worrying than reassuring.

"What was in that syringe?"

Milon looked at him, almost like he was shy. Then he shrugged his shoulders and said:

"It's an android emotion drug... 'The Life' it's called. It's corrosive as hell to the human bloodvessels, but I figure what the hell, I've only a few weeks left so... it's the only thing that keeps me on my feet and I'm going to get as much out of it as I can."

He looked up at Tyr with a determined, defensive look on his face. Then suddenly, he spun around and walked out the door motioning for Tyr to follow.

*

"Yes! Am I the greatest or what?"

Harper couldn't hold back a little shout of triumph as the three red dots appeared on the screen. This was technology from a different world, a programming language he could not possibly be familiar with and the pressures of knowing that he could get caught in a place where he was really not supposed to be. And despite all these factors, he had done it in less than five hours. He was the king of gadgets!

Pitch yawned demonstratively and sauntered over to where Harper was squatting down, head bent beneath the console cover.

"You done then?"

"Indeed I am. Allow me to demonstrate the amazing Crewmember Re-locator and Area Placer!"

"C.R.A.P?"

"Well, yeah, the name might need some working on... but the machine is working fine as you can see. These red dots are the telltale energy signatures of someone from our dimension. Three of them, just as it should be. And with the map, I can locate the area where they are! See, that's me right there. Now all I have to do is relay this information to some kind of handset... and we're motoring! Tell me, am I the greatest engineer you've ever met or what?"

"Oh yeah, you're like a god to me," Pitch said sarcastically, "now can we head downstairs?"

"I just need to find something to use as a handset..."

"Here."

Pitch pulled something out of a well-concealed drawer and handed it to him. It was a little portable display with some buttons on it. It took about ten minutes to configure it. It was perfect.

"I don't know about you, but I'm grabbing some sleep now. Having had to listen to you yapping for, what going on fourteen hours now? Unconsciousness seems strangely tempting."

He gave Harper a smirk that proved he was really only trying to push him. Harper made a face back. Had it really been that long? He knew they'd had to wait forever to get up here. Wait until night, when the security was a bit lax. Pitch had shown him around EterniVision, listening to him talking about life on the Andromeda. For someone who was so... assertive, he was a surprisingly good listener, or maybe he just didn't care enough about what Harper was saying to even bother responding. Either way, it made for a welcome break from Tyr's 'silence boy!' type comments.

"Sure, I guess Beka and Tyr can take care of themselves until the morning... listen, there's something I meant to ask you..."
"What?"

Harper hesitated. He didn't know Pitch anywhere near well enough to get personal. But after what had happened on the Andromeda, he was curious.

"You took a huge risk bringing Milon back from our dimension... so how come you don't even know where he is now? Have you... fallen out or something?"

Harper didn't look at Pitch, instead he closed the cover on the machine and stood up. He could almost feel those black eyes burning on his back. He was just about to turn around when he heard a beeping noise from the machine. 'Error: unauthorised modification detected... please verify passcode."

"Oh shit..."

There was a counter on the display, red numbers counting down towards zero. Counting down much too fast.

"Eh, Pitch, I think I might have..."

Harper was just about to finish the sentence as the counter reached zero. Suddenly, he was thrown backwards as a massive electrical discharge went through his body. Stunned, he fell to the floor as the smell of burning hair filled the air. Through a haze, he could see Pitch kneeling down at his side, putting his fingers to his neck to find his pulse. He could feel himself sliding into darkness. The last thing he could hear was Pitch's voice saying:

"Oh great. Fucking typical."

Harper wholeheartedly agreed with him.