A whomp, a sharp skatch of kicked gravel, a gasp, and a yell.

"STEALER!"

The next second, Chet's world exploded. From a quiet nowhere zone of sensationless calm, pressure and pain flared back into existence, flooding the dark desert behind his eyes with the blinding force of a ten-megaton nuke. The black that his world had dissolved into burst in a spatter of points of brilliant white light, flashing across his vision like a thousand tiny stars.

He gasped, and then tried to gasp again when he realized that he could. This, however, was somewhat ineffective and caused him to go into a coughing fit, rolling so he was face down on the pavement.

This small drama caused him to effectively miss the other noises going on in the parking lot. The noises that he didn't hear might have registered as another fight if he had indeed heard them. But he hadn't, so they didn't, until someone nearby screamed, and from the coppery feel of blood on the inside of his still-closed mouth he guessed that it hadn't been him.

He couldn't see, could only take a stab at what had just happened. Struggling for oxygen, still crushed under a terrible band of pressure that seemed to have descended across his chest and throat, he wheezed his way through the tedious business of resuming breathing was settled. Turning face up again and opened his eyes. he tried to yell something appropriate.

"AAGH!"

Most of his vision, which had been fully possessed by the night sky, was now filled with blue and white and black. His ears were now filled with a somewhat excited, rather young and squeaky voice.

"Hi, Chet! What are you doing on the ground?"

Chet blinked furiously as his eyes came into focus, taking in the rest of the face that hovered three inches over him. He groaned, and shook his head. "StarWhere's John?"

"He's eating the pavement, but I don't think he likes it very much." At a bit of pushing, Star got off the precog, and motioned over to the psychologist. Said man was spitting out gravel and trying to stand up, looking murderously at the pair.

Chet sat up quickly in the eight-limbed-mutant-snow-angel-shape his fight with Mereii had swept in the parking lot's grey gravel, his chest heaving desperately as he gulped air and choked on the dust in it. The light was still rushing back, and bringing his vision with it, the sheer onslaught of shapes and colours stinging his eyes, and he welcomed it. He hacked and coughed, surprised at the effort it took to stay sitting upright, for he was still nearer strangled than he knew. There was something important nagging at him, something he had to do-

-and, in a flash, he remembered what it was.

"Star!" he yelped, attempting to use his still-lead-weight legs and failing. "Don't let him get up!"

"Okay!"

Before Chet could elaborate, Star straightened up, and took a flying leap at Mereii from a standing start, landing on his back WWF-style before pulling him forcibly to the ground again and landing on top of him. Kneeling, Star used his knees to pin the man's arms to his sides, holding him down despite his struggles with the simple and effective method of a single hand starfished across his face. The boy looked exhilarated but slightly panicky, and an even more bizarre touch was added by the security guard's hat, which by some miracle was still perched on his head.

"Chet! He's all squirmy! WhatdoIdo?"

The precog scrambled over to him, digging in the pocket of his pants. "Hold him still," he managed to say, although his voice was a harsh scrape that nettled the back of his throat. However, it was still perfectly audible to Mereii, who started to fight even harder to get away, and Star, who redoubled his efforts to hold him down.

Finally extricating the flat grey case from his pocket, Chet speedily shelled the little green-filled ampoule from its padding into his palm. Tossing the box aside, he grabbed Mereii's pinned left arm and dragged the sleeve back, shuddering at the touch of his bare skin.

"What'cha doin'?" said Star, craning to see past his own shoulder.

Chet looked up for a moment. He regarded Mereii's face, still mostly covered by Star's hand, and the one, furious, terrified grey eye that was visible between the fingers.

"Putting him out," he said, quietly. "Or down."

Then he dropped his gaze, tapped the needle, and slipped it into and under the skin of the psychologist's arm, depressing the plunger swiftly and evenly until the barrel was empty. In that moment, his own automatic efficiency frightened him; he had been right in thinking he could do this in his sleep, but the experience was not a pleasant one.

It was evidently no picnic for Mereii, either. He froze up entirely at the feel of the needle, and the noise he produced in response was not so much a scream as a retching, crushed-rat squeak. Chet withdrew after a few more moments and stood up, dropping the syringe as he did so and watching the fragile glass shatter and glitter against the gravel.

"Let him up, Star," he heard his own voice say, still in that quiet, matter-of-fact tone. Star looked at him in surprise, then gave Mereii's face a final shove and got up, stepping back to stand just behind his fellow ex-patient.

"Sorry, Johnny," said Chet. "It had to happen."

For a few moments, it looked like Mereii's paralysis was permanent. Flat on his back, staring upwards without seeing, he didn't so much as twitch. Then, with a shuddering gasp, he stirred and got to his knees, and the look he gave Chet then was sheer one-hundred-percent-proof poison. And sheer one-hundred-percent-proof lucid poison, at that. Standing, straightening his glasses, he examined his arm, eyes for no injury other than the tiny bright drop of blood that beaded there. He dabbed it away carefully with a fingertip, and then drew his left sleeve dismissively down over the site, rebuttoning the cuff as he spoke.

"And exactlywhat did you.expect to happen, Karos?" he hissed. His voice was punctuated by deep steadying breaths but was otherwise flat, and utterly deadly. "Did you really thinkthat a solution intended for a, a freak like you would have any effect on me?"

"Was kind of hoping, yeah." Chet said, dryly. "Can't think why, you being the soul of sanity and all."

Mereii sneered, backing away. "Well, looks like yourtalent' let you down this time, doesn't it?" He spread his arms mockingly, presumably to indicate his own distinct lack of catatonia. "And the deal's off, incidentally. For your information, I might have kept my end of it, but now" He stooped momentarily to retrieve his briefcase, shaking his head. "And you can rest assured that your friend will know exactly why, and exactly how much that his so-called friends respected his," he spat, "noble intentions, to happily go back on their side of it for the sake of some mindless antagonism."

Chet appeared to think for a few seconds, and then smiled.

"My talent' has never let me down yet, John." He tilted his head, and the smile widened. "But anyway, I can see you're busy, so"

The psychologist backed off further, his expression torn between smugness and fury. Either way, it wasn't pleasant, and his words even less so. "You are all going to pay for this."

"We'll see, won't we? And good luck"

Mereii growled something and turned his back on him, stalking off fast towards the main entrance.

"you're going to need it," finished Chet, mildly.

As Mereii disappeared from view, Star suddenly yanked on the back of Chet's shirt, dislodging a small cloud of grey dust. "Chet?"

"Hmm?" The precog continued to stare in the direction of the main doors. "No, it's okay to let him go this time, I think-"

"Nonono, Chet, what's that sound?"

"what?" Chet turned to him, eyebrows arching. "What sound?"

Star pointed in the direction of the parking lot's single entrance. "That sound!"

Chet stood still, baffled, straining to hear anything out of the ordinary above the normal muted city clamour around them. A long pause, and then

"That, Star," he said, a new and decidedly concerned expression unfolding across his face, "is the sound of trouble."

Back in the comparative calm of Mereii's office, bothered by no noises apart from the racing of her own pulse, Kat slammed the lid of the laptop down and grinned an adrenaline-fuelled grin. Pushing the machine back so it was more or less in the same position as it had been when she had discovered it, she hopped out of the chair and made for the door.

Sprinting headlong for the stairs, she thought she heard the ding of the lift behind her, but by that time she was well around the curve of the corridor and away. Elation and nerves practically gave her wings, spurring her to take the stairs several at a time and nearly resulting in an extremely serious injury when she rounded the bend between flights at somewhere around 10m/s and met an actuator coming the other way.

The actuator curled like a cut zipline to avoid a collision, caught her around the waist with only enough impetus to knock a little of the wind out of her, and set her down on her feet on the landing. Otto arrived a second later, with Escher clattering to a halt behind him.

"Otto! Are you okay?" Kat managed, breathing hard.

"It depends. The blueprints?"

"Deleted," she shot back.

Otto let out a long, fervid breath of his own, and the actuators chittered and shrilled in triumph. "Then yes, I am."

"Where's Chet?" Escher asked her, anxiously.

Kat blinked. "I was about to ask you the same thing. Have you seen Star?"

Escher shook her head.

Otto frowned, digging in a coat pocket. After a moment, he produced his shades, flipping them open. "Perhaps they-"

Before he could get any further, all four of his smart arms skreeeeked urgently, coiling around behind him to face the stairwell window. Wordlessly, he turned, fast, and strode towards it.

"What is it?" said Kat, half-running to keep up.

"They hear sirens." Otto slid the dark lenses up over his eyes and made a slight gesture, and the lower two actuators bunched beneath him to lift him over the stairwell and up to the window. The upper pair continued to hover, sentry-like, tilting their claws slightly as they listened. For a moment or two, there was utter silence in the stairwell as the two girls also concentrated, trying to pick it up.

"I can't hear anything," said Escher, finally. "Are you - are they sure?"

Otto looked down at her briefly from his high vantage point, a touch of humour lifting the corners of his mouth. "Believe me, they know what sirens sound like."

"Okay, well, let's go!" Kat jerked a thumb over her shoulder. "There's a back way, emergency stairs on the second floor. If we move now we can be half a city away before they get here-"

"That's a good plan, Kat, but there's a small problem," said Otto, shading his eyes to peer downwards out of the smeary stairwell glass. "Or two."

"Huh?"

"Chet and Star. They're both down there, in the parking lot" An actuator chirped by his ear, clacking its claws in agitation. "They're trapped."

And trapped they were. Almost back to back now, nearly in the dead centre of the space, Chet and Star stood listening to the approaching cacophony with almost identical looks of helpless tension growing on their faces. The lot was a bare rectangle of gravel, boxed in on three sides by blank concrete walls and on one by the side of the asylum itself. From the gate at the far end which opened straight out onto the street, the sound of sirens was now not only clearly audible but increasing with each passing moment. In terms of the use for which it was intended, Sporlock's car park was almost completely empty; and in any case, the sparse scattering of cars that remained in the spaces were useless as cover. The only other exit was the side door of the building, and it was towards this that Star suddenly bolted, going from stillness to a sprint just as suddenly as a mouse racing for its hole.

"Star, no!" Hurling himself after, Chet managed to grab Star's wrist, digging his heels into the gravel and fighting the boy's peculiar and superior strength. "Listen to me! If we - if either of us - go back in there, we won't come out. Ever!"

Star turned and stared at him, and Chet blinked back, hardly aware of what he had just said. Even as he tried to replay it, however, the visions broke back over him in a wave, voices, scenes-

-corrupt management-

-methods, though cruel and unusual-

-congratulations due, to the new administration-

-fair process of reprofiling for all our current patients-

-to hand it to him. The man was insane, but he made the right calls-

Little by little, the present filtered back. Chet shivered in the warm dusty air, feeling somehow aged, for although it had lasted for less than a second he felt like he had watched years pass. "There'll be an inquiry," he said, slowly. "We'll be reassessed. And they'll find" He swallowed. "They'll find nothing different. Certifiable, for both of us"

Star wailed, though not as loud as the sirens. "I don't wanna be certifiabled!"

Chet shook his head, searching the area, looking so hard he felt like his eyes were about to bleed. Looking for something, anything, any way that forked out away from the future that he had just seen, some way to go which didn't show him their two timelines dragged together neatly and shackled, forever, to that of the bleak building that loomed over them.

But all he could see was one word, and so, despairingly, he said it.

"Up"

Behind him, his companion's dismayed expression went as suddenly clear as sunlight shafting through clouds. Star didn't exactly understand everything that was happening right now, but there were things he definitely did understand completely. Fast-approaching hostile banshee-type noises and weird and scary-sounding prophecies were one thing. But "up"?

Star could do "up".

He grabbed onto the wrist that already held his own and bounded forwards, towing a startled Chet in his wake like an angler who has unexpectedly hooked a plesiosaur. Stretching up with his free hand, feet in fast-fraying socks finding impossible footholds in the sheer surface, he started to climb the concrete boundary wall. Dragged behind him, Chet did his best to copy this feat, slipping and falling back as his own feet left the ground. It was just about as much as he could manage to keep the best part of his weight off of Star's arm, scrabbling for non-existent ledges between the breezeblocks with his other hand while the boy fought to pull them both higher. After a few seconds more epic struggle against gravity and common sense, Chet felt a lurch and heard a happy yelp, faint over the now-deafening sirens, and squinted up to see that Star had just tried and succeeded in lurching upwards and getting his hand over the top of the wall.

"Okay, Chet! Now what'd'we do?"

Chet opened his mouth to convey that he hadn't a clue, but before he could say a word two things happened. Firstly, the first police car screamed past the gate in the opposite wall and slewed to a halt, presumably as a prelude to reversing through ninety degrees into the lot. This would have been impressive enough on its own, but as it was it was rather overshadowed by the second thing.

Accompanied by the sort of skull-rattling SKRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAASHHHHH that is generally only heard on major building sites just after someone at a safe distance depresses a T-handle, the fourth-floor window of the building above their heads exploded outwards, taking a large part of the wall around the frame with it into an expanding cloud of debris. Glass and chunks of brick soared serenely in all directions for a moment, before starting to rain groundwards and rendering the centre of the parking lot (where Star and Chet had formerly been standing) about as safe as the area under a blown-up asteroid. In the street outside, the second police car to round the corner ploughed straight up over the kerb and embedded itself a wisteria bush, its driver apparently a little too distracted by the explosion to remember the concept of a straight line'.

Launching from the rising cloud of masonry dust like a renegade eight-limbed comet, Otto plummeted out and sideways, actuators snaking out beneath him to their fullest extent. Smacking into the wall to which Chet and Star clung on both sides, the arms contracted to absorb the force of the fall, landing their host spectacularly on the foot-wide ledge at the top. It was ridiculously narrow, but thanks to the mathematical precision of his assistants' he balanced perfectly, the scuffed toecap of one boot inches from Star's white-knuckled fingers. Behind him, both piled somewhat uncomfortably on his back, Escher and Kat held onto the doctor's shoulders and grinned at the other two.

Otto smiled momentarily as well, and then reached down, two tentacles acting in tandem to the movement.

"Need a hand?"