Day 2
Laurel woke early the next day to the sound of Nimnul falling out of bed and the ambient sounds of the Rangers getting ready.
"Morning, Nimnul," she remarked with a smirk at the mad scientist's misfortune.
"Ugh. I had such a weird dream. I dreamt I was a mole in a post-apocalyptic world."
"Actually, you're a shrew on this Earth."
"I shouldn't have asked."
"Your counterpart is probably having similar thoughts about being human."
"How can you be so calm about this?"
"Honestly, I really don't mind being a mouse. I don't see why you're so worked-up about your counterpart being a shrew."
"It's... it's... it's the size issue, if you must know. I was picked on as a kid for being short. And I lost in every fight, so I took it out on the only things small enough not to beat me. It's no surprise I suppose that here I end up the smallest creature in the room."
"Actually, you're still bigger than Zipper, and there are still people here bigger than me."
"Are we going to eat, or not?"
"Come on, Nimnul, we'll ask the Rangers if they can spare any food for us."
"What am I supposed to eat? Acorns?"
"My, you're sarcastic today, Professor," replied Laurel with a note of amusement.
Laurel headed out into the main living area with Nimnul following behind. The room was decorated with hand-made maps of the area and the only electronics to be found were a vacuum-tube radio, which was currently off.
Entering the kitchen revealed the Rangers sitting around a table, looking over a map while they ate.
"Say, what's with the radio out there?" asked Laurel. "I wouldn't have expected there to be any broadcasts on a post-apocalyptic world like this one."
"There are enough people in the New York area to run a local radio station. It was started up again when Dale and I were kids," explained Chip.
"Yeah, but they only broadcast from ten to seventeen," added Dale.
Nimnul remembered the conversation from the night before. "So, is that Fat Cat's hideout?" he asked.
"That's it. We're figuring out how best to handle th' rescue," replied Monty.
"Do you know where they're being held?"
"We've made rescues before, so we know where he's likely to put his prisoners."
"Here, here, and here," said Gadget pointing out three locations on the map.
"Yeah, easiest to guard those," Nimnul agreed, having some practical experience in the subject while Emperor on Earth-A.
"Unfortunately, just because we know which three areas he's likely to use doesn't mean we know which one of them is actually going to be holding the people we need to rescue."
"Which is why we're going to have to split up," concluded Chip. "Laurel, I'd really like your help in this, but not if you consider Nimnul here unmanageable."
"Hey! I'm right here!" complained Nimnul.
"Well, Nimnul, are you going to make yourself useful?" asked Laurel.
"Well, seeing as I don't have any choice about when, or if, I'll ever be leaving this sad little world, I might as well come along. Do you mind if she and I check out that room?"
"If you get us caught, I'll beat you black and blue."
"Now why would I possibly want to do that? Aren't you my only hope of getting us out of here?"
"Don't think screwing up is beyond you, Nimnul," replied Laurel with a glare.
"Oh, so the terms of my imprisonment extend to my deportment as well! I'm sorry, Miss Weir! I'll never let it happen again, Miss Weir! Shall I be spending the afternoon in the corner with the 'dunce' cap, Miss Weir?"
"Keep this up and you'll be spending tonight outside," growled Laurel dangerously.
Nimnul promptly shut up.
"Isn't that a little harsh?" asked Chip.
"It shut him up, didn't it?"
"Okay, so you and Nimnul can check this area, Dale, Monty and Gadget can cover this area, and I'll take Tammy and Zipper for the last one."
A few minutes later the group boarded the Ranger Rover, with Gadget in the driver's seat.
With all the equipment in the back seat, it was quite a squeeze to fit Laurel.
"There doesn't appear to be any room for me at all," observed Nimnul.
"Sure there is! You can sit between the batteries," replied Laurel.
"Oh, we've got the perfect place for you, Professor," said Monty, "Don't we, Chip?"
"Yes, let's show him his special place."
And with that they lifted him up and planted him on top of the equipment.
"You can be our mascot," Monty joked.
Nimnul sat there, the shock on his face turning to sour resentment.
"I feel like the iron ball at the top of a flagpole," he moped.
"Well, you don't have to worry about taking a lightning hit this close to the ground," chimed in Gadget.
"Lucky me."
It was, as might be expected, a bumpy ride, and Nimnul had some effort just to hold on. Nevertheless, he got a much better view of the city from this vantage point than he had the prior night. Laurel almost wanted to trade places with him. Almost.
"I'm still amazed at how well you are putting up with everything you have to do without," remarked Nimnul. "It must be hard to get up in the morning, knowing things are so bad, and that there's so little you can do about it."
"It's the right thing to do. If we don't work to improve this world, there's not going to be much of one for our descendants," replied Chip.
"The humans didn't think about that and now they're all gone, never to walk the Earth again," added Tammy.
Nimnul was quiet for several seconds. "What sort of world are you building?" he asked, softly, then louder when he realised he couldn't be heard the first time. "How long will it take before it's back to normal?"
"I won't pretend to know what the future is gonna be like, but it'll be better than this. Maybe one day get rid of the Midnight Crew. That would be a huge improvement. Still, I don't expect to live to see it. Maybe any grand kids I have in the future will, though," replied Chip.
"Our Nimnul is a big player in rebuilding the technology. Of course, there's only so much which can be done with what's left over from World War Two," added Gadget.
Nimnul nodded, wide-eyed. Laurel had seen what could be considered a signature in the technology of Earth-C which reminded her of Nimnul's inventions. It was as if Nimnul has been given the technology of the late 1940s and told to go and build anything useful he could dream up.
"Yeah, looks like the human extinction set you back about fifty years," remarked Laurel.
"Really?" asked Gadget.
"Ah, yes, the second half of the Twentieth Century saw even more technological improvement than the first half in my world," explained Nimnul, shaking himself out of his reverie. "The war ended in '45, to be followed by a 'Cold War' of propaganda and the threat of complete annihilation, but somehow, the nukes never went flying. America put a man on the Moon in '69. Given the 'secret history' of my world that I've been learning about, I would not be surprised in the least if a mouse managed to stow away somehow."
"The Moon, really?" asked Dale. "Did anybody move up there?"
"On her world, yes, but sadly, our world decided that space exploration was a 'luxury' as long as the age-old problems of hunger and unemployment still existed. I'd call it moral cowardice, myself. What else... colour televisions in every home, devices for sending images through telephone lines, personal computers, digital watches... can't forget the digital watches!"
"Well, it's not too hard to build a digital clock with the right gears, but somehow I don't think that's quite what you mean, is it?" asked Gadget.
"Liquid crystal technology. No moving parts. Lasts for years on a tiny battery. I never used to think much about them until I found myself on a world where they didn't exist. An author named Douglas Adams thought they were rather neat."
Dale said, "Our Nimnul has written about that. I don't think he has it working yet, though."
"Something about the cold, I think he said," added Monty.
Nimnul shrugged. "Perhaps I can leave him some notes. Most of what I know requires technology you don't have yet. And your world's Nimnul seems pretty clever, from what I've seen. He might be able to figure this stuff out himself, and..." Nimnul grinned at this "...get jealous of me for taking his glory."
"I'm sure you were busy inventing new stuff before transistors became widespread on your world, Nimnul. I don't see why you couldn't come up with something with this world's technology," replied Laurel.
Nimnul nodded. "You'll have to tell me where my lab is sometime."
"I don't know. I didn't see either of our counterparts anywhere that looked like a lab when I was scouting out this world with the viewer. Still, my counterpart did seem to stick with yours, though."
"Uh, guys, what did Fat Cat do to the factory?" asked Dale, pointing up ahead of them.
From this distance, the windows which still had glass in them were now a solid black behind the glass. Arriving at the factory, a close-up examination revealed them to have had black paper crammed up against them and held in place, on a large scale, by a grid of rectangular beams. Chip sent Zipper to check the roof and the fly reported back that Fat Cat's goons were in the process of blacking out the skylights and that there were a number of large mirrors sitting around on the roof.
"What's he up to?" asked Chip
"I'd say whatever he's up to, he either wants to keep light in or out," remarked Laurel. "I seriously doubt he's taken up photography, though."
Laurel's last remark earned her a snort of laughter from the Rangers.
After an arduous climb, the group reached the roof, on a side where they'd be invisible to their enemies. It took a bit of sneaking around, but they finally managed to get inside.
"That was too easy," said Chip.
"You always say that," countered Dale.
"And half the time, I'm right!"
"'Be careful'. We got it," said Tammy tiredly. Laurel suspected the Rangers had heard an argument along those lines countless times from Chip.
The group split up.
"Come on," said Nimnul to Laurel, confidently, leading the way down one branch of duct work.
"Nimnul, what makes you so confident about this route?"
"I have studied maps and diagrams my entire life, and I have the ability to think in three dimensions! That, and we're heading towards the sub-standard generators this world is stuck with, so if the lights keep getting brighter, then we must be going in the right direction."
"So, what makes you so sure that the people we have to rescue will be in cells near the generator?"
Laurel could tell from the look on his face that Nimnul wasn't thinking of rescuing anybody, but a quick glare set him back on track.
"Well, Fat Cat has obviously kidnapped Winifred to build something for him, and we're not only heading for the generators, but also the largest room in the factory."
"Nimnul, we're supposed to just rescue her and get out."
"Yes, of course. What did you think we were doing? Come along, it should be right after this panel."
The panel in question was the ventilation grill, which offered a view into a large circular room. The centre of the room was taken up by what looked like a mutant telescope that reached all the way to the ceiling. Nimnul's interest seemed to be focused on the electronic assembly Winifred was working on.
"This looks familiar," Nimnul whispered, just barely keeping his voice low enough to not be heard by Winifred or her guard, Mepps.
"What is it?"
"It looks like part of my conditioning system I used on Sparky and Buzz, just built with less sophisticated components."
"Part of it?"
"Yes, it used two subsystems. The first was optical in nature. I based my version on an electromechanical device I found at the docks. After I reproduced it using a purely electronic approach, I found its control effects were too wide-scale to be of use to me, so I added the electrical subsystem to provide finer control. This device here is the optical subsystem built with this world's technology."
"So, how is it supposed to work?"
"It uses modulated pulses of light to re-program the brain to follow behaviour of a known pattern. For instance, you can make a man act like a chicken, but only if he knows how a chicken acts in the first place."
Laurel thought that Nimnul's explanation sounded vaguely familiar, but she couldn't pin down where from.
"Doesn't sound like something your counterpart would build."
Nimnul shrugged. "I don't think it's his invention here. I think this is probably an improved version of the original device I found."
"Do you think it will even work on this world?"
"Probably, yes. Technically, it doesn't bend the rules of the universe, which is what made it so easy to duplicate in a purely electronic fashion. I'll tell you one thing, though: it won't work on us. Having bodies of this universe and minds of another is more than that design could possibly handle."
Just then, the door opened, and Mole poked his head in. "The Boss just called a staff meeting," he said, in a voice utterly devoid of emotion.
"I hear and obey," Mepps replied in a similar tone and followed him out. The door could be heard locking behind him.
"They're like zombies. I'd say you're right Nimnul. It does work, and Fat Cat tested it on those two dimwits."
"Well, you're in charge. What do we do? Winifred's all alone now."
Laurel surveyed the room from their viewpoint.
"Getting back up here would be too hard. Besides, her assistant isn't here and we have to rescue her, too."
"Very well."
Laurel was pretty sure that Nimnul had been hoping to get down there and get a closer look at the invention. Fortunately, he appeared to know better than to try and take control with Laurel around, especially in close quarters.
Nimnul just sighed. "To the cells, then." Nimnul closed his eyes, clearly trying to remember the route to take.
"Ah... left heading down the main corridor, so... right on the way back." He opened his eyes and turned around. "Down that branch."
"I hope you're right."
This was Nimnul's lucky day, it appeared, because not only was the cell block at the end of the duct, but its only prisoner was an unguarded Foxglove.
"Foxglove!" whispered Laurel from the vent.
The bat turned her head. "Who said that?"
"Up here. The Rescue Rangers got us to help them rescue you and your boss from Fat Cat."
"Thank goodness! I've heard a little about your group. Do you know where Dr. Cadwallader is? I haven't seen her since we've been captured. In fact, I haven't gotten anybody to tell me anything since I've been thrown in here."
"As far as we can tell, Fat Cat has her working on some sort of mind-control device, or at least, that's what Nimnul thinks it is. A couple of the goons walking around as if they're halfway to zombies does give evidence in favour of the Professor's hypothesis."
"Oh, dear," said Foxglove. "I've always been afraid of what the Doctor would do with a mind-control device. She carries grudges for an awful long time, you see. She's a perfectly respectable scientist when she's working on anything else."
"I think Fat Cat is probably more of a worry. He's ambitious and power-hungry."
"True," said Nimnul, "but he probably wouldn't have been able to scale it up to this size successfully without her help."
"Scaled up?" asked Foxglove. "How big?"
"Big. Really, really big. If he had that thing on a mountain, he'd be able to enslave everyone in the city a thousand times over. Thankfully, we're in a low-lying area, and that thing is now too big to move."
"He'd still have to sweep it in a path over the city, though. That thing is built like it's connected to a telescope," pointed out Laurel.
"Like I said, he didn't think this thing through. I made a mistake like that... once. And we need to take advantage of that mistake before he finds a way to correct it."
"What was the mistake?"
"Height. Let's say he's able to raise that thing to the roof, which he should just barely be able to do. Not the top of the head, the roof. This is the most-run down part of town! There's nobody to zap around here! He might be able to reach six, maybe seven blocks at most. I figure that's only a couple dozen animals. What kind of slave army is that?"
"Good point, Nimnul. Now, Foxglove, if I hop down there to unlock your cell, can you get me back into the vents?"
"I can fly you out, assuming I don't make so much noise that we attract too much attention. I've had to get my boss out of more than one narrow escape when a power coupling failed catastrophically."
"Right. Nimnul, you hold the vent open. I can pick the lock in a minute or two."
Laurel hopped down from the vent and took a length of wire out of her pocket and quickly picked the lock on Foxglove's cell.
"Thank you," Foxglove said quietly, stepping out. She looked Laurel over. "If you could stand right there..." She backed up a few steps and with a spring took to the air, grabbing Laurel by the shoulders and practically flipping her at the lip of the vent.
Laurel just managed to grab on and pull herself into the vent. Hopefully, that wasn't too loud.
Laurel and Nimnul then backed up so that Foxglove could easily fly up to the vent and crawl in. "You're heavier than you look," she remarked.
"Probably the muscle mass. I get into a lot of fights."
"Ah," she replied, unconsciously shying back a little. "I'm lucky that I can usually get away without having to do that. If I were a better fighter, perhaps I wouldn't have become a scientist."
"Nice to meet you, Foxglove," Nimnul said, reaching around Laurel to offer his hand.
"My pleasure."
"So, with Foxglove here rescued, shall we go back for Winifred? I hope we won't have to deal with her before we can deactivate the device."
"What if the guards are back by the time we get there? I can beat up a couple of rats, but not a cat."
"Should we get the Rangers first?"
"We don't even know where they are relative to us right now."
"Then what do we do? It's not like there's an unlocked supply room somewhere where I can throw together some kind of super weapon."
"We'll rescue Francine if possible and head back to the Ranger Rover. The Rangers can meet us there."
"This way, then."
They returned to the vent to see that Winifred was eating her lunch. And the guards were still at their meeting.
"We don't have any rope left. So, Foxglove, it looks like getting Francine up here is up to you."
"But what about that machine?"
"I don't think we can do much about it right now. We finish the rescue, then get the Rangers and come back to wreck it."
Foxglove looked between the two of them. Seeing no further argument, she opened the gate and jumped down.
"Foxglove!" Winifred said. "You escaped!"
"Yes, and I'm taking you with me. We need to get into the ducts before we're discovered."
Winifred put down her sandwich and walked over to the duct. "I'm ready."
Winifred looked around her cautiously. "Professor Nimnul?"
"I see my reputation precedes me."
"Save it for later," snapped Laurel. "We've got to get moving before Francine's guards come back."
"Lead the way," said Winifred.
A few minutes later, they reached the rendezvous spot, where the Rangers were waiting for them.
"Congratulations on freeing the prisoners," said Chip. "Did you manage to find out what Fat Cat wanted them for?"
"Some sort of mind-control device. I suspect that's why he tried to recruit Nimnul yesterday, too."
"Not good. Is it working?"
"Yes," said Nimnul.
"Then we're going to have to deactivate it."
"It shouldn't be that hard," said Winifred. "Just reverse the voltage on a critical component."
"That's your solution to every problem," said Foxglove.
"That's because it always works," said Winifred with a sniff.
"I suspect that fixing the damage would be easy, though."
"There's always my solution," muttered Monterrey. Given what Laurel had seen of him while researching Earth-C, it probably involved several hundred sticks of dynamite.
"Blow it to bits?" asked Laurel with a menacing grin.
"My four favourite words," Monty replied.
"Nitroglycerin is fairly temperature sensitive and the device does use quite a few valves, which generate a lot of heat. I think you can work out the rest."
"Indeed. Let me get back to the car and...do you smell something?"
"Everyone hold your breath!" cried Chip.
Laurel promptly held her breath and put a hand over Nimnul's mouth and nose.
The gas kept on coming. And coming, and coming. Eventually, they had to breathe, and that's when they lost consciousness.
They woke up in the room with the invention. Fat Cat was standing over Winifred. "I hope you weren't too badly affected," he said, helping her up.
"No," she replied. "I made sure to build up a bit of an immunity beforehand."
Foxglove looked back and forth between them in shock.
Fat Cat smirked. "I always find that look to be my favourite part of a betrayal."
"Winifred!" cried Gadget, "how could you?"
"Do you have any idea what this device is capable of? After decades of playing 'good' and pretending to have forgiven them, I will finally have the chance to get my revenge! Revenge on all those who said I'd start a new war, just because I was smarter than they were. Everyone who told me that science was evil will now have to obey my will!"
"Boy, talk about overreaction, Francine," commented Laurel dryly.
Winifred stuck her nose in the air at this remark.
"But what about the side effects?" asked Nimnul quietly.
"There are no side effects," proclaimed Fat Cat proudly. "The device destroys the will of its victims. There are no other effects."
"That is the side effect. Sure you'll have their complete and utter loyalty, but you're also stuck telling them when to eat and when to sleep. When they get sick, you'll have to take care of them, because they will no longer be capable of caring for themselves. Surely, Professor Winifred, that is enough reason to withhold your support!"
"I don't care," replied Winifred.
"You and I are scientists, Professor. We purchase the right to experiment at the cost of total responsibility!"
"It's Doctor Cadwallader, Professor Nimnul. I never did like the title of Professor, and I still don't care about your objections."
"Wait, was that a Doctor Who quotation?" Laurel asked Nimnul.
"'Planet of Evil'. Fourth Doctor," confirmed Nimnul.
"But you just quoted the Doctor. You never quoted the hero before."
"Hmm. Perhaps I've finally found a reason to sympathise with him."
"Who's the Doctor?" asked Dale.
"A fictional hero," replied Laurel. "If we get out of here, Nimnul can tell you all about the show."
"You know, they're right," said Chip. "Power comes with responsibility. Absolute power means you're landed with absolute responsibility. Do you really want that much responsibility?"
"You are all so naive," replied Fat Cat dismissively. "When one batch of workers become too weak, I'll throw them away and hypnotise some more."
Laurel gave a snort. "And just how long do you think the population will last under under a policy like that?"
"Shut up!" snapped Fat Cat. "Ugh, you are all giving me a headache. Well, now we get to the best part of my villainous plan. So far, I have been testing my new weapon only on my lackeys, but I can't be sure that it will work on everyone until I use it on one of you. So, who will it be? And if somebody doesn't step forward in the next minute, I'm picking the blond mouse in the overalls."
"I'll volunteer," said Nimnul with a gulp.
"Are you sure?" asked Laurel, playing along with Nimnul, and trying to steer Fat Cat into using one of the two people present who would not be affected by the device.
"Oh, no you don't! I intend to pick your brain for inventions after this, and I won't be able to get anything out of that head of your once you're brainwashed," said Fat Cat.
"Who says I'll give you anything?" fired back Nimnul.
"I have some new techniques I'm just itching to try. Somebody else."
"You use that thing on Gadget and I'll kick your butt sixteen shades of black and blue," snarled Laurel.
Fat Cat motioned to his goons and steepled his fingers. "Well, then, I think I'd better use it on you, if only to avert that fate."
As Fat Cat finished his sentence, the goons grabbed Laurel by the arms.
"Lahwhinie, you don't have to do this!" protested Gadget.
"At least she remembered to keep my cover," thought Laurel.
"I don't think Fat Cat is giving me a choice," replied Laurel. She lurched violently against the cat and fox holding onto her arms. "Ugh! I can't get loose. These two are stronger than I can fight off."
"Really? There's not a lot you can't fight off, Lahwhinie."
"Yes, really," replied Laurel through gritted teeth. "Seems Fat Cat isn't as stupid as his lackeys. Let me go, you lugs!"
The goons remained silent, their grips not lessening despite Laurel's efforts.
"Oh, no. I'm not letting you go," said Fat Cat smoothly. Grinning menacingly he gave a final order. "Boys, Take her to the testing room."
Laurel was led to a room with a glass circle in the floor and mirrors positioned above it.
"Now do remember to struggle," Winifred told her gently. "The point of the experiment is to prove that the effect of the device cannot be resisted."
"Throw her in, boys," ordered Fat Cat.
"Let me out!" demanded Laurel, trying to force the door open, but without success.
"Yes, exactly like that!" cried Winifred from the other side of the door. "Now this next part might sting a little..."
The floor beneath Laurel started to glow, forming pulsating patterns of light. The light was reflected by the mirrors, directing it over every surface, intensifying the effect. Soon it was so bright that not even closed and covered eyes could block it out.
L awoke, and looked about her.
She was floating weightless in space. She could see nothing, hear nothing, feel nothing, smell nothing, taste nothing, and echo-locate nothing.
Having nothing to sense, she turned inward. Her mind was a cacophony of thoughts trying to assert themselves.
Foremost was the question of identity. She was Laurel. She was Lahwhinie, and Luna, and Lu'thyni, and a few variants not spelt with the Roman alphabet. There may have even been a Lawrence in there, she wasn't sure. Similarly, she was human, mouse, a machine intelligence, a thinking protozoan, a multidimensional being, and an entire planet, all at once.
L's several selves coalesced themselves as they agreed on a single thought: When it comes to the immunity of a dimensional traveller to a mind control advice, Nimnul had no idea what he was talking about.
"We are outside our body", L thought. "Out, perhaps, in the space between universes, as a being of pure thought."
Laurel, the part of L that was most immediately at hand, had the experience of two different universes, with subtly-different sensory systems. With the memory of how she had adapted to the transition between worlds, L reached out for new senses for this new environment, and soon found them.
At first it seemed like she was floating in an endless white void, but further examination dismissed that initial view. Dotted at regular intervals were small intense clusters of matter-energy. The arrangement, however, only appeared regular if it were mapped to ten dimensions of space. It wasn't much of a leap to deduce that each cluster was a universe and that what she was seeing now was the multiverse viewed from outside any given universe.
Now came the difficult part. Which one of these universes was Earth-C located in? For that matter, where was her home universe? L felt no homing beacon towards any one universe. She could feel which universes had a counterpart of herself in it, but she was unable to match identity to universe.
A moment later, she became aware of other minds present in the void between universes. Most of them were crying out in agony, lost and unable to sense. To L's "eyes" they appeared as nebulous forms, like small clouds. Many of them were undoubtedly victim's of Fat Cat's machine on Earth-C. Others were probably hapless experimenters who had tried and failed to create a Dimensional Switcher. Without help, they would undoubtedly spend eternity out here between universes. Suddenly the universe nearest her flickered, twice, then disappeared.
"How is time passing in this place?" she thought in panic. "Will my world be a burned out cinder before I figure out how to get home?"
She tried to extend her senses, and discovered an eleventh spatial dimension. Laurel considered this odd as string theory was only supposed to have ten dimensions of space plus one of time. Instantly, several of her selves shrank away.
"What's wrong?" she asked her selves.
"That is the direction of the Watchers," they replied in the tiniest current of thought imaginable. "To demonstrate knowledge of their existence is fatal. Don't you see the gaps?"
L then noticed the gaps, places in the grid of universes where a universe was missing. Not missing... destroyed. An entire universe destroyed, because the test subject had detected the presence of the experimenter. Once that happened, the experiment was ruined. L briefly mourned their loss. But then she realised that their loss was her salvation.
The missing universes made the grid around her asymmetrical. That meant that it could be mapped to the grid of universes she had studied when she had been preparing her trap for Emperor Nimnul three days ago.
L rotated and adjusted her mental map of universes which had been found while searching for a suitable destination for Nimnul's punishment. Eventually she found a transformation which lined up perfectly with the vista before her. She knew where she was.
Figuring out how to move was much harder than finding her senses, but before long she was finally on her way.
"Hello? Is somebody there?" It was a foreign thought in L's mind, coming from a being that she was approaching on her way to Universe-C.
"Over here!" called the voice. Laurel stopped and turned towards the source.
Floating in space before her was a grey fox with blond hair. She was dressed in what seemed to be medieval clothing. Something about her seemed familiar.
"Do I know you?" asked Laurel uncertainly.
"Oh, only in the way you know your reflection in a pond," replied the fox.
"You're one of my counterparts," realised Laurel.
"And you're one of mine. I wonder. Have you been here before? You seem to know what you're doing."
"I cheated."
"Yes, we do seem to have a penchant for challenging the rules when they don't agree with us."
"How did you end up here, and stay sane?"
"Oh, one of my spells went wrong. I can partially push myself into this limbo to avoid the pain of torture, but my link back to my world snapped, stranding me here. As for staying sane, chalk that up to repeated visits here."
"Could you get back in your body if you could find it?"
"Yes. That goes for everyone here."
"Hmm... maybe I could help. What was your world like? How many suns did it have? Is there a season of darkness between Spring and Summer?"
"That sounds like a very alien world. Just the one sun. There's magic in abundance, though."
"That doesn't limit the possibilities very much. 40% of all universes are magical. Let's see... what is the material component of a lightning spell on your world?"
"Material components? There are none. Not unless you want to make a potion."
"Okay... what's the most refreshing drink for a warm summer's day?"
"A mug of honeyed wine is widely regarded as the most refreshing, especially if you pay the extra for the pinch of salt."
"Salt? Yes! I don't know the specific universe you're from, since you weren't there for me to make my observations, but I think I know the neighbourhood. You should try searching... there." Laurel pointed towards a small cluster of about a hundred universes surrounded by empty spots.
"Thank you. As payment, take this. It'll let you retain some memory of this place." A glowing ball of energy crossed the distance between them and was absorbed by Laurel.
"Ah. That may prove very useful."
"Get up."
Laurel found herself on the ground. She was back in Fat Cat's compound.
At her feet she saw a strand of loose wire. Remembering to copy the blank look in the eyes of the other zombies she had seen, she slowly got up, managing to pocket the wire.
She saw that her minder was Mulder the fox, accompanied by a mindless Mepps, not that there was much difference between that and Normal Mepps. For a moment she allowed herself to look Mulder in the eye, and he winked at her conspiratorially. She returned the gesture.
"Well, that's enough of a break for a simple stumble," he said. "Follow me, you two."
Laurel and Mepps followed him in silence.
He led them around the corner to a cell door. "Now Lahwhinie, your job is to demoralize the prisoners by being your brainwashed self. Mepps, you'll come with me."
"No guard?" Mepps asked in confusion.
"Change of plan. With Lahwhinie in there, this cell is handled. Now the other cell, though, is the one with the Rangers. And only Mole to guard them. Fat Cat wouldn't want the Rangers to escape because of Mole, would he?"
"Mole's stupid," Mepps said flatly.
"Yes," said Mulder with a smirk. "You're much smarter than him now." He opened the cell and let Lahwhinie in, then locked the door behind her. "Now don't do anything I wouldn't do!"
Laurel stood just inside the door, staring blankly, until she was sure that the two of them were out of earshot.
Nimnul looked at her nervously. "Laurel? Laurel? Are you in there?"
Laurel slowly shuffled towards him, then reached out and boxed his ears.
"Ow! What was that for?"
"That was for being wrong. Again."
"So you're alright?" asked Foxglove, the only other prisoner in the cell.
"Only because one, I'd been studying Nimnul's equipment prior to our Switch into this universe; and two, I had a little help from a counterpart in keeping my memories of the limbo that device sends your mind."
"So if you saw the conditioning system up close, then you know how to dismantle it, right?" asked Nimnul.
Laurel shook her head. "Not dismantle it. The minds of all of that machine's victims are still out there. We can still save them."
"How?" asked Nimnul. "It's a light-pattern emission system. You can't simply spin the image in the opposite direction."
"You could try 'reversing the polarity of the neutron flow'."
"More Doctor Who, eh? And we both know that phrase makes absolutely no sense. Although... if we swap the red and green, and then run the blue input backwards, it should attract instead of repel! Yes, I think that could work!"
"I'll make a hero out of you, yet," said Laurel with a wry grin.
"I hope you don't expect me to 'hero' my way into that chamber single-handed?" asked Nimnul sarcastically.
"No, we're going to break out of here, get back to Ranger HQ, and build ourselves some reinforcements. Tomorrow, we'll kick Fat Cat and Winifred's behinds so hard they won't be able to sit down for a month."
"What about the Rangers?" asked Foxglove. "What if Fat Cat starts putting them in that dreadful machine?"
"That'll have to wait until tomorrow. We don't have the resources needed to rescue them from the kind of heavy guard Fat Cat has in place."
"Very well. Do you have a way to get us out of here? Last time, you used a wire to pick the lock, but you couldn't possibly..."
"Oh, yes. I found a replacement on the way back here from the testing room."
Foxglove shook her head in wonderment.
After listening at the door for a minute to be sure no patrolling guards were in the vicinity, Laurel picked the lock with the wire.
"Right, Foxglove you pull the vent open and prop it up with the wire," instructed Laurel as she straightened the wire as best she could.
"Will do."
Nimnul looked up at the vent uneasily. "I'm getting tired of vents," he sighed under his breath. "After you, Miss."
"I just hope you don't mind Foxglove carrying you up to the vent. After all, it's too high for either of us to climb from here."
"I've learned to live with the height thing long ago, so no, I don't mind."
With Foxglove's help, they entered the vent.
Laurel grabbed the wire and quietly closed the vent. "Right, now let's get out of here."
Under the circumstances, Laurel did not let Nimnul lead the way this time.
"We have to get back to the rover and back to Ranger HQ before dark. The Rangers can't control the Midnight Crew, so I don't think we'd be able to fight them off either."
"You don't have to tell me twice!"
"Unless you have the plans of the building memorised, Professor, we'll just have to hope the rover was left where the Rangers parked it."
They looked out of the wall vent at the pavement below, and the rover was indeed where the Rangers parked it.
Nimnul grinned. "I remember this from the episodes. Mr. Fat Cat has an unfortunate habit of forgetting the important things in life, like your enemy's primary means of escape."
"Either that, or his priority was keeping the Rangers locked up and he assumed that the rover would get stolen during the night. He's put two guards on their cell, but didn't assign anyone to ours."
Foxglove pushed forward to confirm that yes, there were no guards. Taking the wire from Laurel, she opened the vent, flew out, then turned around and returned. "Foxglove Express to the ground floor! Who's first?"
"I'll go. I'm going to have to figure out how to drive the rover, anyway."
A few minutes later, they were all in the rover.
Laurel switched on the motors and they sped away across the ground. Retracing the route back to the park was a race against the failing light. When they approached the park, a number of crossbows were pointed at them, at least until Lahwhinie and Nimnul were recognised. Soon Laurel pulled up outside the Rangers' garage.
"How are we going to get inside?" asked Nimnul. "The Rangers have a combination lock and we don't know the combination."
"Correction, you don't know the combination, Professor," replied Laurel as she hopped to the ground and headed for the base-16 combination lock. "Gadget gave me a hint before we left."
"Well, then, what is the combination?"
"7-A-B-7. Easy as pi," replied Laurel as she finished locking the rings into position and threw the door open.
"What does that have to do with pie?" asked Foxglove as they pushed the rover into the garage.