"Zoey, sweetheart, it's not the end of the world," Thames said, catching up to her again. "He can't have gotten out of the facility."

"He got out of isolation," Zoey snapped. "When I last looked in on him, he was out like a light and in no condition to be going anywhere."

"Lothos informed us that Alia managed to free him. You've got to hand it to her; that's not an easy lock to pick."

"Alia's going to rot in hell for that," Zoey snarled. "And she's trying to drag me down there with her. She'll regret that."

"But we're going to catch him," Thames reminded her. "He's not going anywhere."

Zoey stopped and rounded on Thames. "Dr. Smith," she hissed, "has done something to Lothos, or we would have known the minute Alia so much as tried to get him out of isolation. And if he's found a way around Lothos, then he can get out of here. And if he escapes, it'll be on my head, not yours, so don't you tell me everything's going to be just fine. Now get going to seal the doors and sound the alarm and whatever else you need to do to make sure we catch him. I've got to talk to Alia."

Thames let Zoey storm off without further comment. She was right, after all; the fact that he had to set everything manually meant Dr. Smith had managed to do something to corrupt Lothos's systems. They would have to determine what he'd done and how he'd done it before they could go about correcting it, and that would take time.

Perhaps the fool thought it would give him time enough to escape.

Smirking to himself, Thames entered the Control Room—and stopped short, seeing Dr. Smith emerge from within the main terminal. Before he could open his mouth, however, Dr. Smith pulled a silver tool from between his teeth and grinned at him. "Zoey off to see Alia, then?" he asked, nonchalantly replacing the side panels and somehow using his device to secure them in place. Thames noticed a bandage on his right hand, but he used it well. He'd managed to get the chip out, then, which is why they hadn't been able to locate him.

It also explained the blood that was smeared on his face and neck, and the fresh stains on his suit. He hadn't thought Zoey had been with Dr. Smith recently.

"Just what do you think you're doing?' Thames demanded when he regained his voice, choosing to ignore Dr. Smith's observation.

"I'm doing precisely what I think—well, know would be the more appropriate word, really—I need to be doing. Or, rather, I did it already. Just finishing up."

"Lothos—"

"Didn't stop me, as I'm sure you've observed," Dr. Smith cut in. "Oh, believe me, he tried. But he couldn't."

"Lothos would've—"

"Oh, but Lothos would have known, wouldn't he? Is that what you're trying to say? That he would have known what I was going to try to do and anticipated my actions? And did you ask why he didn't tell you? No? Ought to have. But perhaps you didn't because you didn't want to know the answer. And maybe that was because you feared the answer. Because you thought, perhaps, that you might know it already. And you didn't want to admit it. Because you didn't like that answer."

"If you're suggesting—"

"Me? Suggesting that Lothos may not be infallible? Dare I? Yes, I think I do. I am. Wouldn't be back here if I didn't think he was. Granted, I came back here because I needed to ensure that. And a few other things. And I simply didn't have the time the first time. Still, it was first on my priority list, and I didn't have to come back far. Just long enough to nip in and make a few adjustments. Of course, if I hadn't known that you'd catch me at it, we wouldn't even be having this conversation. But I might be able to class this as a cheap trick, you know. Upon considering the instability and all that."

Thames knew nonsense when he heard it, but he'd spent enough time watching and listening to Dr. Smith to know that the man often buried a grain of truth in all his blithering on. Now, however, he appeared to have abandoned that. If he'd intended ambiguity and double meanings to lie behind his words, well, it didn't matter. As far as Thames could tell, Zoey had finally gotten to him.

He had to admit that it had taken far longer than usual. Zoey usually had them reduced to babbling their life story in three days.

"Of course," Dr. Smith was saying, "it helps that I didn't bother to wash up first. Because now you won't know how much time really passed between then and now."

"Doesn't matter, does it?" Thames asked, smirking. "Because for you, it's all the same. And—"

"Oh, you have that right," Dr. Smith said in a low voice. "You'll never know how right. Especially in the given circumstances."

"The circumstances where you're stuck here, you mean?"

Dr. Smith laughed a bit then, a darker laugh than Thames had heard from him before. "Oh, I'll never understand you lot. Where did they find you, I wonder? How could they possibly think you were qualified to work on something like this? Or is that the point, that you're not qualified at all? So they train you up and then you're easier to control?" He shook his head. "You humans, always playing around with things you don't and can't understand. That's what gets you into these messes, you know that? Every time. If you'd stop to think, just once, that oh, maybe this wouldn't be the brightest idea, sending the timeline hurtling towards its own destruction—but no, you don't. And I'm not always around to save your skin, am I? Sometimes you lot have to figure things out for yourselves. And then you learn, don't you, that it isn't always worth it? That it doesn't always turn out like you think it will? Only the next time the opportunity comes around, you forget. And it happens again. And it just keeps going, on and on, round and round, never stopping—"

"If you think you can talk your way out of here, you're sadly mistaken." Zoey was back, the usual sneer on her face. She walked slowly into the room, looking Dr. Smith up and down. "I'll say this much for you, though. You can certainly leg it when you need to."

Thames hadn't seen Zoey come in; he'd been watching Dr. Smith. The minute Zoey had interrupted, he'd stopped, his face adopting a brief expression of horror. Something about that look, Thames knew, was genuine, but he had a feeling it hadn't been brought on by Zoey's words. Absurd as it sounded, Dr. Smith seemed as if he had been surprised by what he had been saying.

But that was absurd, like he'd thought.

Though it was curious that Lothos still hadn't done anything.

Then again, seeing as Dr. Smith had been at him, perhaps it wasn't so curious after all.

"Oh, I'll get out of here," Dr. Smith said, his voice returning to a cheery tone. "Done it before, can do it again. Probably will have to take a different route, though, since the circumstances of my prior escape aren't going to replicate themselves. Mainly because I don't want to risk it again; once was enough."

"There's no sense in deluding yourself, darling," Zoey said, sidling up to him. "You're not leaving here." She reached out to grab his arm, but he danced away from her.

"Aren't I?" he asked, voice full of false innocence. "Funny you'd say that, really. Because how much do you really know about what's happening? Lothos keeps tabs on everyone, sure, and you can check in on that, but lately he hasn't been keeping tabs on me, has he? And not just because I finally rid myself of that chip of yours. He'd stopped long before that. He stopped the minute I started to outwit him at his own game. And he's not denying it, is he? Do you know why? Because he can't. Not anymore. Not now. Because now, he can't pick me up. He can't sense me. Oh, he knows I'm here now, but as soon as I'm out of this room, he'll lose me. Cameras will go on the fritz, recorders will go all crackly, and you won't have the control you had before. Not where I'm concerned. And I'd realized that, you know, that first time through. Once you came to check on Alia, I, as you say, legged it. But getting out was just too easy, even for me. Even with that little run-in. And then I realized what I must've done. And then I had to do it. So I did, just now. After checking up on something else, of course. But this is done and set. I've primed it. It's ready." He paused, grinning. "Aren't you going to ask what for?"

"Thames, get him back in isolation. I don't have time for this." Zoey sounded bored. There was no trace, Thames noted, of the anxiety he'd heard earlier. She'd planned out her punishment for Alia, then—or at least the start of it.

"Aren't you going to ask?" Dr. Smith pressed. "Lothos, I mean. Aren't you going to ask why he's been playing these games with you?"

"Now, Thames," Zoey ordered, voice sharper than before.

Thames started towards Dr. Smith, but the man kept evading him, nattering on. "He's afraid of me, I think. Least, now he is. Now that he's got his proof. Or he did. Doesn't now. But he knows he had it, and that's enough for him."

Dr. Smith dodged the punch Thames threw at him, but he let himself get caught anyhow. Or at least that's how it seemed, since he would've had a chance if he'd tried to get past Zoey. He likely wouldn't have succeeded, but he would've known there was a chance, and anyone in their right mind would have taken it, especially if they knew what would be in store for them if they hung around. And Dr. Smith certainly had had a taste of that now.

Thames marched Dr. Smith toward the doorway and out into the main hall. He hadn't stopped blithering on, jumping from topic to topic as if he thought that would confuse him. But even if it didn't make a whole lot of sense, it wasn't confusing. Thames had long ago learned to accept things without protest. He didn't have to listen to what Dr. Smith was saying. He just had to put up with it.

"You'd be amazed at the things I seem to keep in my pockets these days. Though, come to that—" and here Dr. Smith paused for a second, seemingly reconsidering, before adding, "—you'd probably be amazed with some of the things I've kept in my pockets in the past. And, oh, it's this one, isn't it? This hallway?" They passed by it. As it led toward some of the research and development aspects of the project Dr. Smith had never seen, Thames was surprised he'd been interested in it at all. He shouldn't have known what it contained.

"Apparently not," Dr. Smith said, sounding a bit concerned. "Next one, then?"

Thames resolutely kept marching him down to isolation, making sure to give Dr. Smith an extra jab every time they passed a doorway or a hallway into another artery of the complex.

"I think we missed it," Dr. Smith started saying. "D'you think we can go back?" He was craning his neck to look over his shoulder now and trying to drag his feet at the same time.

It had taken him longer than the rest. Thames would give him that. But sooner or later, they all cracked. Especially under Zoey. He'd gotten on the wrong side of her once, when he'd first been recruited. Fortunately, he'd had the good sense to redeem himself and prove himself willing and useful. And he was. He certainly knew how to handle the technical side of things much better than Zoey did. And he loved watching the cockfight as much as the next person. There was a certain thrill in it that he didn't get from anything else.

"It'll take five seconds," Dr. Smith insisted. "Well, fifty-four, if you stop now and we start going back—"

"And why do you think I'd do that?"

"To preserve history, or at least to keep things from getting worse? No, wait, wrong project. Sorry. How about if I said you'd get to know who I really was?"

Thames stopped, suspicious now. "What do you mean, wrong project?"

"Did I say that? I meant wrong projection. As in, projection of what you're supposed to… No? Not buying that?" Dr. Smith shrugged as best he could in Thames's grip. "Suppose I knew you wouldn't, but it doesn't hurt to try, does it? Besides, it made you stop. And that's all I really needed, because just seeing this, well, it was enough for me to make the right connections. You don't need much, really, to make those connections, not if you're willing to connect in the right ways and in ways so many people would insist are the wrong ways. Still following me? Yes? No? Maybe so? How about if I say you just need to think fourth-dimensionally? That's what you're prodding at, after all."

"I don't know why I bother," Thames muttered, pushing Dr. Smith to start walking again.

Dr. Smith didn't move. "You bother because you think I might be right," he pointed out. "Or, rather, because you think I might say something that might be right, or nearly right. I mean, I can't be wrong all the time, can I? Statistically, I'm bound to be right once in a while. Only, you've noticed that I seem to be right a lot more than I statistically should be, haven't you? Because you've been the one watching me, screening everything I do—at least, when you see it. But I was right about that hallway being the right one, you know, just like I was right about what would make you stop. And I'm going to be right about escaping, too. Just you watch." And before Thames could stop him, Dr. Smith had twisted out of his grip and started running back the way they'd come.

Thames started after him, dodging through the corridors and in between rooms—rooms he'd been quite certain had been closed off, so how Dr. Smith had managed to open them was beyond him—until he was certain that Dr. Smith, who hadn't ever been in this part of the facility, would have gotten himself utterly turned around and lost.

That was perhaps why Thames wasn't as surprised as he might have been to find Dr. Smith with his ear pressed to the wall at one of the dead ends.

"You may be right about a lot of things," Thames started, making sure he was blocking the exit. "But you're as fallible as the rest of us."

Dr. Smith looked a bit confused. "Well, yes," he allowed, "at times, but may I ask why you're making that observation now instead of gloating?"

"Seemed fitting," Thames replied. "Because you were acting like you thought you were always right."

"Was I?" Dr. Smith's brow creased for a moment. "And when...oh. Right. Yes. I see." He paused. "If you're not going to march me off right away, mind if I go back to what I was doing?" And without waiting for a response, he started knocking on the wall again, as if he expected to find a hollow spot behind it.

"It's a dead end," Thames told him.

"So say the schematics you've seen, but then you never did much digging, did you? You just accepted what was on the official plan, like the mindless puppet they've taught you to be. Never bothered to walk the perimeter, did you? It doesn't match up."

"Believe what you want, but the facts aren't going to change."

"No, they aren't, are they? But sometimes perspectives shift, even if the facts don't change."

"Is that what you were on about earlier?"

"I don't know. What was I on about earlier?"

Thames didn't bother answering him. He grabbed Dr. Smith's bandaged hand instead, forcing him away from the wall. "Let's go."

"Oi, watch it!" Dr. Smith protested, pulling his hand away. "That's still tender. And I know you haven't exactly got a reputation for being supremely hospitable here, but you could at least pretend to have some common decency."

Thames snorted. "Why, because you think Lothos won't be recording every word we say?"

Dr. Smith looked puzzled again. "Why would I think that?" He saw Thames roll his eyes and got defensive. "I had the chip in my hand removed; it's not like I had a chance to wipe Lothos's memory banks. You have had me locked up for over a week, you know."

"Acting like you've lost your marbles isn't going to help you here," Thames informed him shortly. "Half the staff probably have, but they've retained enough sense to keep themselves alive."

"You included?' Dr. Smith asked lightly. Thames scowled at him. "I just don't think you ought to start defining who's sane and who's not, because then you have to define what's normal, and you can't do that."

"And you think that you—?"

"What I think," Dr. Smith interrupted, "is that you, and a good many others here, are refusing to open your eyes. I mean, it's all laid out in front of you, plain as day. But you don't want to see it. So you can't. And that's one of the reasons this project will fail, you know. Because you can't adapt as well as you ought to. You can't accept what you need to. You can't piece things together, make the right connections. How can you, when you're so focused on tearing things apart? But let me tell you, no matter how much you lot tear apart, you won't be able to mould the future you want, not like this. There are too many other factors that influence that sort of thing. What you're trying to do is to prevent the last straw from breaking the camel's back. And, yes, it seems to work. Sometimes. But it's far from infallible."

"You're trying to lecture me?" Thames asked incredulously. "I'm going to lock you up so tightly that you're never going to see the light of day again, and you're lecturing me?"

"You may try locking me up, but I'm not getting the impression that you'll succeed, not if you're going on like this, not making the connections. Because I've made them already, you see. I know what I'm going to do, or have already done, depending on how you look at it. And I know I don't exactly wait a while to do that, based on your behaviour, so I expect that, even if you do manage to lock me up, I'll get out. I'll come back, but since we're having this conversation now, I think it's safe to assume that I'm going to get out again. I'm going to succeed, twice over. And you know what? I'm not going to be the only one who manages to escape your little project here." He grinned, a bright, slightly manic grin, but it was a cheerful one, free of the darkness that had been held in his expression before.

He thought he'd won.

Thames smirked. "Lothos," he called, "seal the door to Unit 45-D."

"45-D?" Dr. Smith repeated. "Really? This is a dead end, then. You're right. I was a room over, wouldn't you know?"

"Lothos," Thames repeated, "I need you to seal the door to Unit 45-D."

"I did manage it after all, then," Dr. Smith mused, a slight smile on his face. "Lucky me." And before Thames could stop him, he was out of the room. Thames started after him, but Dr. Smith pulled the silver device from his pocket again and aimed it at the door. "Sorry," he said, not sounding at all as if he meant it as he activated the device and the door started to close. "But I have to get out the first time if I'm to get out the second time." The door had closed by the time Dr. Smith had finished speaking, much too quickly for Thames to slip out after him.

The mysterious Dr. Smith had, it appeared, won after all.

Thames vowed he'd get him for that, for everything he'd put them through, for being so smug as he did his best to outwit them all. Thames didn't stand for that sort of thing; he'd even kill the good doctor personally if he ever saw him again. He wouldn't let him get a word in before he shot him clear through the heart. He certainly deserved it, with all his rambling and infuriating implications of superiority.

He'd rather let himself be taunted into giving the man a quick death than be outwitted again and not have the chance to kill him at all.

Zoey would agree, but he wasn't going to tell her.

He wasn't about to give her an opportunity to take her anger out on him, on the pretence of teaching him a lesson.

He'd learnt his lesson well enough the first time.