After Dottie escapes from the trunk of the car and kills the police officer, her only thought is to get out of this forsaken city as soon as possible. She's finished here; let Peggy deal with Whitney Frost. Dottie has nothing on her except the officer's gun, but that's enough. She breaks into an empty home several blocks away from the hospital and raids it for a change of clothes, jewelry, money, anything else she can find. No casual observer would notice, but her hands are trembling ever so slightly.
Whitney Frost is smiling at Dottie, and Dottie smiles back. "Zero matter has a tremendous amount of energy, enough to transport objects instantaneously through space," Frost says. "In theory, if harnessed correctly, one could move objects through time in the same way."
Sousa holds up a stack of papers, covered in equations and drawings. Frost's eyes go wide and she reaches through the bars for them. "Move objects into the future? The past? Both?"
"Both ways. Though changing the past would have obvious ramifications for the future. But the real problem is how to control when and where to send the object…" Whitney Frost trails off and focuses her attention back on Dottie. "I remember you. You were so afraid of me you were shaking like a leaf. You cried."
Though every inch of her screams in revulsion, Dottie reaches in between the bars and grabs Frost's wrist, twisting it until the other woman gasps in pain.
Sousa's got his gun pressed up against her head. "Let her go."
She pushes Frost away forcefully. Soon, I'll have you soon.
"We can continue this interview with you in handcuffs," Sousa reminds her. "Will that be necessary?"
He's been getting on her nerves more and more as the night drags on. Dottie smiles at him. "I'll behave."
"Thank you," Sousa sighs. He turns back to Frost. "How would we know if the future has been changed?"
She laughs. "Well, it hasn't been done to my knowledge, so it's hard to say. It's possible we wouldn't notice anything out of the ordinary. My best conjecture is that one would first observe small anomalies—things that shouldn't be there or look the way they do—and then increasingly larger anomalies would appear."
The door opens and a portly man sticks his head in. Dottie doesn't recognize him. "Carter said it was urgent? Something to do with Whitney Frost?"
"Samberly, it's about time you got here," Sousa says.
"It's four in the morning, Chief. Normal people are asleep at this hour."
"Hello, Dr. Samberly," Dottie purrs.
"Hi," he says, looking terrifically uncomfortable. He glances at Sousa. "Chief—"
"Don't talk to him," Sousa orders Dottie. "Not one word out of you. Samberly, don't talk to the lady. Got it?"
"Sure, Chief," Dottie says, giving Samberly her brightest smile. He looks ready to run out the door.
"Listen up, Samberly," Sousa says. "We are interviewing Miss Frost here about the…temporal properties of zero matter. Your job is to keep her talking and get as much information out of her as possible. Any questions?"
"Uh, I think I got it, Chief." Samberly hesitates. "Carter told me about Gerard. I take full responsibility; I swear I had no idea—"
Sousa closes his eyes for a moment. "As chief, the responsibility ultimately rests with me. I believe you. And I'm not interested in pursuing any commie witch hunts within the SSR. I just want to get this case solved. And then I want to go to bed and stay there for a long time."
Samberly looks relived. "Great. Thanks, Chief. Though since I've got you here, maybe when we get a chance we could talk about the lab budget for next year?"
Sousa glares at him. "Does this seem like the time or place to be asking me about the budget?"
"No, but—"
"Put in a formal budget request. Give it to me next week, when I might be feeling a little more generous." He shakes his head. "Actually, make that two weeks."
"Time travel." Peggy raises an eyebrow.
"In a manner of speaking," Dottie says. "Zero matter distorts the space around it and makes it behave in very unusual ways, but as you know, it's possible to contain and control it to an extent. Zero matter also distorts time, though we know less about how that works. But if it's possible to control that aspect of it, then it could be possible to change past events to alter future outcomes, for example. And no doubt create some interesting paradoxes."
"Do you believe this?" Peggy asks Sousa.
"I really didn't think we would get anything out of Whitney Frost," Sousa says. "I thought she was completely nuts. Then she started telling us all these things. So I still think she's completely nuts, but we've both seen what zero matter can do. I can't rule it out."
"I thought it was zero matter that made her lose her mind, but now I wonder if it's because people stopped listening to her," Peggy says thoughtfully. "Maybe she's talking to us because somebody is listening."
Sousa pauses, seemingly a little uncomfortable with that speculation. "At any rate, it's clear that the Russians do want something with Whitney Frost, and Underwood was right about the stolen evidence. We need to recover the rest of it and find our missing spy. The longer we wait, the worse our chances are. Let's go."
"First of all, she could be anywhere by now. Second, do you really want to leave Dottie here with Samberly and Whitney Frost?"
"Oh." Sousa stops in his tracks. "That does sound like a bad idea."
"Terrible. What if you stay here with Samberly and Whitney, and Dottie and I will get the evidence back?"
Sousa shakes his head. "You and her alone? She could be walking you right into a trap. We can't trust her."
"What is it with you and trust issues?" Dottie interjects. "If I wanted to deliver Whitney Frost to the Russians, I would have done it already and spared myself the pleasures of your company. Besides, Peggy has the button to blow me up, remember?"
"Enough," Peggy says, pacing back and forth. "Now, if I were a Soviet spy tasked with kidnapping Whitney Frost and stealing her papers, and then everything started going the wrong way, I would want to lay low for a few days to reformulate a new plan and wait for backup. Thanks to Gerard Brown, she already has detailed knowledge of the layout of the SSR, and likely knows that we have Whitney Frost here. I propose we don't wait for the backup to arrive."
"You want to set a trap," Sousa says.
"I have a very bad idea. They want Whitney Frost, yes? So we'll stage it as though we're transferring her back to the hospital and let Dottie's friend draw herself out of the shadows."
Sousa frowns. "Sounds risky. I don't want to give them the chance to actually nab Whitney Frost."
Peggy smiles. "Oh, we won't."
It happens so quickly Dottie isn't even sure it's real. Out of the corner of her eye, for a brief moment, she glimpses a white rat running along the floor. Then it vanishes. A shudder runs up her spine.
Peggy is talking to her. "Dottie? Are we in agreement?"
Dottie blinks. "Sure, Peggy. Let's go have some fun."
