6x01 - Requiem, Part II
Three years, a charlatan.
Night after night, the news programs lit up with images of his face, the pundits and talking heads endlessly speculating and dividing every word he had said. The multidimensional lenses, the highly developed arrowhead, and especially the device that could take him from dimension to dimension. "What do interdimensional goods mean for scarcity, abundance, and flooding?" the economists asked. "How can we defend against an enemy that could appear in our most vulnerable and sensitive facilities?" pondered the military strategists. "Would the Book be the same to its jots and tittles, and if not, what then?" wondered the men of the cloth.
The "Father of Inter Dimensional Travel" they once called him. But now, nothing more than a laughingstock.
The statue was pulled down and melted to slag. The visual aids, destroyed or collecting dust in a storehouse somewhere. The scathing articles completed and long since faded from the public consciousness, leaving only a handful of occasional scamps to ring a mocking call.
And Professor Maximilian Arturo, former Regents Professor of Cosmology and Ontology at the University of California, removed of his position from his erstwhile employer of many years and now a physics teacher at the City College of San Francisco, had nothing to do with any of it.
When he had first arrived on this world with his brilliant student of physics Quinn Mallory, the lovely and adventurous young Wade Welles, and his final companion of burgeoning courage, the singer Rembrandt Brown, it seemed as if nothing could get better. They were home: reminiscing of the nearly two years they had been gone, getting back in communication with their loved ones, settling into the end of a journey. Professor Arturo himself had mere hours to enjoy this heretofore thin facade of a homecoming before he was drugged, chained down in a basement, and held for two weeks.
His captor was amenable enough, providing enough food and water to survive and the occasional blanket or pillow when it seemed he was getting somewhere with his interrogation, even speaking to the chained Professor of the credit they could share. "You simply need to provide the details of sliding, then you will be reunited with the others, and I remain here to continue our research. As a man of science, how can you discount this when we all come out the victor?" But as time passed and the window to leaving this world drew ever closer, Professor Arturo's jailer moved inexorably from carrot to stick, cutting rations, endlessly repeating sentences containing the number "29", anything to get the Professor to crack.
But crack, he did not. And in fact, when the opportunity presented itself, it was his captor who took the blow to the head and was chained down in the Professor's place. With very little time to spare, the Professor raided his captor's wallet and, working off the bits of information his captor had let slip, flew by taxi from his pupil's house to the museum and back again, but his friends were all missing.
And it turns out, they were in the captor's house, and taking his captor, his double from this dimension, with them.
Professor Arturo descended the stairs in calm determination, sure that his friends would recognize his words as the words they spoke when they first arrived on this world. But fury at the other Professor's treatment and lies overtook the genuine Arturo upon the stairs, and after a strong rebuke of the charlatan, the impostor reached back and drove his fist directly into the face of his prisoner, leaving him crumpled upon the ground.
Coming to shortly thereafter, Professor Arturo was in a daze. Stumbling out the door and hailing one last taxi, he made a desperate rush to the house of his pupil's mother, thinking they would say goodbye to the alternate family they had only known for a short two weeks. Though his astute deduction had paid off, the next meaty strike of the impostor had left the world spinning, and even years later, the Professor struggled to remember the moments after he emerged from the taxi. There was a fight. His friends debated whether to take them both or not. Sharp blows. Pain. The world spun. And finally, "Oh my God."
They had left him behind.
For weeks, the phone would not stop ringing. He had missed his meetings, his openings. "Where was this timer you were going to display for us?" "Can you open a portal just for demonstration purposes?" "What do you mean, 'It's gone?'"
The university let him go. His double's devious assistant, quickly wise to what had happened, distanced herself from him to protect her position at the university. Quinn's mother, distraught at having lost her son for the seemingly second time, refused to see him. There was no proof as to what had happened, the sliding machine was packed up and taken away by the government, and there was no way for the "charlatan" to get his hands on it.
Three years of microwaved macaroni dinners. Three years of a studio apartment hours away from the Bay Area, and a two hour commute in a beat up old sedan with a clear view of the Azure Gate Bridge each way. Three years of an upstairs neighbor of six children, side neighbors whose idea of a quiet Saturday night was Boomboxes placed up against the wall and bellowing in intoxicated frivolity, and a downstairs lady who spent more time driving her broom into the ceiling to quiet the noise than she did sleeping, it seemed. Had it been years before, this might have been intolerable... but for Professor Arturo, having borne the punishment for the actions of a man he had nothing to do with, a few broom pokes was nothing new.
His students might have been the next generation to understand the fundamental building blocks of the universe, maybe even found themselves on the cutting edge of new understandings of physics. Perhaps even one of them would make it through this dimension and to another, Arturo wondered off-handedly, and together, they could find out what happened to his friends.
Smiling wryly and exhaling slightly, the Professor shook his head. One of the students in his class wouldn't stop talking about how his house was haunted and how he wanted to use science to communicate with the spirit. At least half of the others were there to keep their parents from throwing them out of the house to get a job, and spent the entirety of the class surreptitiously texting one another messages about this or that night's festivities. The rest were on the slowest of tracks possible; the upper level faculty had made it clear what a favor they were doing for the "charlatan," and that this was a place for transfers or babysitting. No more. Moving ahead to higher level concepts was not going to help with either of those tasks when students were leaving the class in droves before black marks stained their transcripts. The Professor learned his lesson after attempting to push ahead a few classes for one particularly party-enthused group of students, and after the complaints rolled in, it was back to the very basics and endless review. There were eager minds about to be sure, but none had the spark that Professor Arturo saw within Quinn. Well, except for Mr. Green and Miss Lu, who would even spend their lunches picking the brain of their dear professor in preparation for their coming transfers.
*THUMP* *THUMP* *THUMP* The footsteps of the children above came like clockwork, making it clear that it was time to empty the mind of the next generation and return to the problem at hand. Night after night amid the thumping, yelling, and assorted sounds of the densely packed apartment building that his previous position had kept him from, Professor Arturo studied, worked, and experimented, bringing what little money he could spare to his local electronics dealers and trying, night by night, to recreate the genius that his star pupil had seemed to demonstrate so effortlessly. The desk was strewn with gears, circuit boards, a soldering iron, calculators, plastic shells, rubber buttons, wires, a humble Del laptop upon which to program the entire mess, a wealth of objects that may one day be his freedom.
And through it all, he worried. What would his impostor do to his friends? How long before they realized their mistake? When would he strike? It would be such a small matter for him to pump Quinn for information, and once he had what he wanted, "accidentally" leave one of them behind, one by one, stranded on God knows what world, until he alone had the secrets of sliding.
Professor Arturo shook his head. Every moment spent in a flight of anxious fancy was another moment he wasn't trying to solve this conundrum and make right this situation. But every day that passed by without a breakthrough, he couldn't help but feel a little more hope begin to slip through his fingers like tightly clasped water. It had been three years; even if he could overcome the fact that the window of opportunity had come and gone, was there still a way to follow the trail? How would he be able to distinguish the path of the original sliders of this world who had left years prior to his arrival, versus the trail that his friends had taken? How could he gather, much less detect, the exotic matter necessary to hold open the bridge between worlds? Were his friends still alive, and what of the impostor?
Professor Arturo quickly took out his notepad, and turning to the "Problems" page, re-read the entries once more. Tapping each one with his pencil, he nodded, then returned to his work. Nothing new to add, just the constant worry.
The sun set, and night began to set in. The Professor sat at his desk, still wearing the pair of black khakis, white and grey pinstripe dress shirt, and grey, buttoned-down sweater vest that he had kept from his earlier class. He was a somewhat heavyset fair-skinned man with a larger nose, and a clean beard and mustache. His black hair had gotten longer since his time at the community college, and he brushed aside a lock from his brown eyes as he looked at the mess upon his desk. He had lost count of how many prototypes had come and gone: not providing enough power, not gathering the exotic material correctly, not tracking a nearby dimension, shorting out before anything could happen, corruption of the dimensional data by the circuit board, a constant half second limit to the opening of a wormhole that he just couldn't overcome, calculations that came out to negative density, the magnetism of the Earth flipping bits between the device and the supposed wormhole, one failure after another. His current prototype was following a potential lead regarding a whispering gallery stabilizer, which might have taken enough energy pressure off the construction of a stable bridge long enough to allow him to pass through, but leaving him at the mercy of both an unstable vortex, as well as appearing 400 miles underground.
The children continued to stomp around upstairs, the bass of the thumping next door droned on in sequential rhythm, and the familiar broom strikes came from below. (What a headache), he thought. Unfortunately, the mere idea seemed to become reality. Professor Arturo sighed slightly as a small pressure took hold of his temples, before he turned back to his work.
Seconds passed, and the pressure increased, squeezing harder. Professor Arturo exhaled slightly, dropping the casing of his prototype, his mind racing. Strange lights began dancing about his eyes. Was it a stroke? Rolling his chair over to the night stand, he reached for the phone atop it. With his hand just barely wrapped around the receiver however, the pain became unbearable. Dropping it, he put his hand over his forehead, squeezing hard, then knelt down to search the floor for the phone.
"Help me..."
The pain was suddenly gone, and it was daylight.
No... the table clock still said 9:00.
Professor Arturo's eyes flew open and darted towards his apartment door... and the twisting illumination floating in front of it. A bluish-purple warp in space, squeezing and contorting a foot off of the ground, displaying the door behind it in a bent and wavering version of its normal self.
The Professor's mouth moved, nothing coming out for the merest of seconds, until he finally uttered two simple words. That voice...
"Miss... Welles?"
As if in response, the warp twisted and brightened ever so slightly, and the Professor's mind raced to a laser-focused strength that he hadn't felt in years. There was nothing to eat in the apartment, only tap water and nothing else. He grabbed his heavy beige coat, slung it on, and patted the wallet in the pocket, no money. The table was filled with junk he could replace at any halfway-stocked store. The tests he needed to correct were inconsequential. There was nothing here he needed. Nothing high-tech, except...
In a flash, the Professor swiped several books off his bookcase, then grabbed a small envelope he had hidden behind a few textbooks, stuffing it into his coat pocket. With the familiar solidity of its contents safely secured, the Professor grabbed his notebook, then leaped straight into the vortex.
A flash. Then another. A face began to emerge from the light, slowly fading into view: a young fair-skinned woman with close cut brown hair, a tall nose, and a gently rounded chin. The image sharpened, and her dark eyes looked straight ahead in clouded uncertainty. They seemed to question, narrowed slightly in confusion... Then a realization. Her eyes widened in horror, and with mouth unmoving, a voice seemed to scream from everywhere.
"NO! Get away!"
It was nearly instantaneous. He was suddenly outside, and there was daylight.
The sky was a slight overcast of thick clouds, not dark enough to mean rain, but enough to cover the blue above. The Professor stood at a treeline atop soft grass. Looking behind him, the bluish-purple of the strange portal twisted, shrunk, then finally collapsed, leaving only the screams of the woman ringing in his ears.
"Miss Welles!" he called out. But there was no response, only the tweets of the birds in the trees behind him.
Where the treeline broke, a field continued forward towards some gentle hills. To his left and right, the land extended out towards some mountains with the barest of snow at the summits to the north, and what seemed to be a very distant city opposite them to the south. The temperature was mild, and there was a only the gentlest of breezes. It was difficult to be certain, but judging by the overall weather, the landscape, and the topography, the Professor surmised that he was probably still in California somewhere... wherever "here" was.
Doing a once over of his belongings, the Professor found his wallet, notepad, and identification, a few club memberships to local electronics stores that were likely far out of range, and the envelope he had grabbed in a rush. Removing it from his jacket pocket, the Professor opened the flap, turned it over, and out dropped a wafer-sized piece of rounded plastic, with multiple circles of varying diameter and circumference etched in odd columns upon it. The Kromagg door key... a final memento of one of the last worlds that he and his friends had seen just before the Azure Gate Bridge world, and their separation.
Except now, it seemed to be vibrating somewhat. Furrowing his brow, the Professor turned the key over, seeing nothing new from the thousands of times he had looked at it before, but without question, there was definitely some kind of resonance. He held the key out towards the northern mountains, feeling the key become weaker in the movement. Slowly drawing it towards the hills in front of him, he once more felt a strange movement coming from within the alien device, but as he passed it towards the distant city to his right, the vibrations faded once more.
It was drawing him forwards, to what end he did not know. The Kromaggs, the human offshoot and psychically powerful race of apelike warriors who had imprisoned and interrogated him and his friends before, were likely at the end of the path ahead, and were that the case, there was nothing but death where that road lay.
In an instant, all sense of self-preservation was subjugated to a more important stream of thought, as the Professor's mind drew instantaneously towards an inescapable conclusion: whether or not the Kromaggs stood at the end of that path, Miss Welles was likely there too. And he would be damned if he would let anything further befall her. He began his walk towards the hills ahead, pocketing the key and starting ahead.
Thoughts swirled while the Professor walked towards the hills. Who had summoned him? Was it some kind of trick, a dream? How was he going to get home? What was he going to do if he ran into those ape beasts again? He was a scientist, not a soldier.
In time, the slight overcast sky soon gave way to blue, and the Professor started to get a better sense of where he was: central, perhaps southern California, where the slight overcast mornings gave way to the blue of the day and the deep freeze of the night, in stark contrast to the constant clouds and rain of where he had spent a goodly part of his academic career in San Francisco. He removed his coat and tied it around his waist, starting to feel the familiar heat of the Golden State.
But the blue was not all that was revealed: earlier, he had thought it perhaps the sounds of nature, maybe his imagination, but the clouds dispersed to dispel all doubt: Kromagg Manta ships flew about in the sky ahead, their curved chassis and wings all too familiar despite the years it had been since the Professor had seen one. The rumbling whir of their engines got louder as he drew closer to the hills between him and where they patrolled. Keeping low, the Professor came to the top of a gentle hill, then immediately flattened as he saw another sight ahead of him: a massive complex of buildings surrounded by barbed fences, Humvees parked haphazardly on different street corners, and the occasional soldier in solid black fatigues with dark black helmets walking the street, assault rifles at the ready.
(How in the devil am I going to...) he started to think.
A klaxon rang out. The Professor backed up along the hill, flattening down as much as he could, sure that he was discovered. The seconds passed as he awaited the shouts, the blasts, any sign of the enemy upon him. But no Mantas came to investigate where he was, no soldiers came running towards him. In fact, it seemed like all of the soldiers were going to the opposite side of the complex. The Professor watched as Humvee after Humvee accepted their black-clad masters, Mantas turned away and flew past the complex and out of sight, and everyone turned to head in the opposite direction.
Scanning the side of the complex that he could see for a solid minute, there was nothing more than a breeze passing between him and the buildings. Providence or scheme, this was his chance.
The Professor kept low and broke for the chain fence, eyes darting left and right for any telltale signs of light glinting off of weapons, and ears listening for the shouts of soldiers, but there were only the sounds of his quick and heavy footsteps upon the grass and his short breaths. Three years of academic living after the nearly two years of sliding with his friends had left him a bit worse for wear, but to the Professor, there were only the images of Wade before him, pulling him ever towards her and drowning out all pain.
Just before reaching the fence, he transferred all of the items from his heavy coat to his pants pockets, then tossed the coat over the barbed wire, to climb over the fence as swiftly as he could. He hit the ground as quickly and quietly as possible, and mind racing, immediately turned back to pull the heavy coat off of the wire before the soldiers noticed someone had come this way.
But it was too late. Boots approached from his right, a rough and guttural language barked out, and with no time to spare, the Professor jumped through the window frame of what seemed to be an empty warehouse building, and pressed himself into the corner of the wall inside, listening carefully. The bootsteps didn't break cadence as they slowly dissipated into the distance. Thankfully, he surmised, it suggested that they hadn't been on to him. He breathed a sigh of relief, and his muscles relaxed.
The reprieve was short-lived. In moments, the bootsteps began to slow. A barking grunt rang out. The steps got louder, then scattered, until they surrounded the building he was huddled in. A separate bark came from the fence, and a fabric tearing sound rang out. The Professor winced, closed his eyes, then regathered himself, darting a look about for anywhere he could go: the frame of a service door was wide open near him and the soldiers were moving about it, the window frame was a constant stream of the guttural language, there were only a few rotten crates in the center of the room between him, and there were a large pair of open doors on the opposite wall from where vehicles entered and exited, but they would see him before he even got halfway there. There was no way out.
Wrapping his hand around a metal pipe jutting out of the wall, the Professor prepared to make his final stand. His muscles tensed, his grip tightened, and the shouts were right outside and getting closer.
A shadow to his right. Before he could react, a greyish black glove reached from the dark and clamped itself over his mouth. Another grabbed the Professor's hand gripping the pipe and pulled his arm down. A quiet foot pressed itself on the back of his knee, jutting his leg forward and unbalancing him, giving the shadow enough time to pull the Professor to the floor in the corner. The second gloved hand released the Professor's arm and wrapped around his neck, pulling taut and leaving just barely enough room to breathe. He struggled for only the barest of seconds against the assailant before a woman's voice hissed in the darkness.
"Don't make a sound," she said. "Move, and we're dead."
In an instant, the Professor relaxed his body to signify his surrender, and the figure released her double grip and pushed her captive into the corner. In a single deft movement, she pulled a similarly colored grey-black cloth from around her waist, leaned into the corner, then held the tarp before them. Without a sound, she drew her sidearm from her right thigh and pointed it through the cloth.
Time seemed to stand still as the blanket settled to the floor, exactly when a Kromagg soldier entered the building from the service door. From a small gap in the tarp on the left side, the Professor watched as he scanned the room with his assault rifle, pausing slightly at the crates in the center, then continued to sweep the room until he reached the blanketed corner. He did closely resembled the same creatures he had seen those many years ago: his brow ridge was just as protruding and his nose as porcine, but his eyes were dim with less intelligence, along with a dull rage in his countenance. The Professor, remembering the abilities of these creatures, tried desperately to stamp out all thought, hiding himself as best he could from this creature. The Kromagg soldier drew closer, his bootsteps thundering and echoing throughout the empty building, metal jangling from somewhere within his uniform. He took another step, eyes narrowing. The rifle pointed straight at them. He took another step.
And then, he turned the rifle to the side towards the door frame, then stepped towards the open portal and into the outside air. A minute later, and several revving engines and barks later, they were gone.
The Professor looked to his erstwhile rescuer, saying not a word, watching as the black and grey face-painted woman slowly turned her head and eyes about under the blanket, until she seemed satisfied they were alone. Tying the blanket back to her body, the woman stood up, reached down to take the Professor's hand, then pulled him up, giving him a better look at her. A few errant strands of the woman's brown hair were secured under a dark bandana, and she had full lips, and piercing brown eyes. Her face was a painted mask of serious stone. Her camo gear stood out better while she stood tall in the structure, and her hand rested on the handgun now re-strapped to her right thigh.
"Escapee?" the woman asked. The Professor shook his head in disbelief, and misconstruing his answer, the woman continued. "Well you'd have to be, the 'Maggs don't generally take men alive unless they're used as slave labor. Did you get a count of how many people are still in there? How close are they to finishing the device?" She turned her head slightly to the side and her eyes narrowed. "Or are you in shock? Do you need to sit down?"
"I am not in shock, madam," the Professor responded. "I am here looking for a friend of mine. Her name is Wade Welles. I believe she may be a prisoner here."
"Yeah, I got it. There's lots of prisoners here," the woman interjected, taking a quick glance through the window and door frame outside, before looking back at him. "Mr...?"
"Professor Maximilian Arturo, my dear guardian angel," he answered, bowing slightly. "And I believe you have me at a disadvantage."
"Beckett," she answered, "Captain Maggie Beckett." She raised her head slightly in greeting, the etched scowl of her face softening for the briefest of seconds before returning to her normally hard countenance. "As for your friend, sorry, but I can't remember the names of every breeder and guinea pig in a hellhole like this. I take 'Magg eyes," she said, tapping the combat knife on her shoulder, "and my boys handle our lost."
The Professor brushed himself off. "I thank you for your timely rescue, my dear Miss Beckett..." he started.
"Captain," she answered.
"Yes of course, Captain," he responded with a slight apologetic bow of his head. "But I'm afraid I must continue on. My friend may be in dire need of help." Maggie's eyes narrowed. "And what do you think you're going to do on this 'Magg base?" she demanded. "Can you fight? Have you even served?"
"I have," the Professor answered.
"With what? A bayonet?" Maggie shot back under her breath. "This isn't a game, Professor. And this isn't just some random outpost you've wandered into. This..."
She stopped suddenly, turning her head to the side. "How did you get here, anyway?" she asked. "This place should be shielded from incoming travelers."
Moments passed in an instant through the Professor's mind's eye. How could he possibly explain? She was right, and without her help, he might not have the chance to find Miss Welles. In the end, he decided that perhaps, the beginning was the best place. "Well, Captain, there was this odd port..."
Suddenly, the lights in the ceiling flashed on. In the blink of an eye, the woman came upon the Professor, hand clamped over his mouth, pulling him to the ground. She put her finger over her mouth, then turned her head slightly to listen around her. When no shouts were heard and everything was clear, she sighed. "Automatic lights," she whispered. "Used to turn on for the morning workers who used to be here."
The Professor sighed in relief. "I am ever in your debt, Captain," he said with a smile. The barest of smiles came across her face in response. "Comes with the job," she responded, turning her head to the side once more, when her half-grin became a serious, tight-lipped stare.
She beckoned to the Professor and indicated with her thumb a building across the way. The Professor nodded, flattening himself against the wall and crossing the length of the warehouse to the opposite side, pressing himself up near the vehicle door. Maggie crouched next to him, hand on her sidearm. At first, the Professor could hear nothing, but straining as hard as he could, he could start to make out the faintest of voices. They got closer, echoing off the remains of the opposite building, until in the utter silence of the Kromagg compound, he heard them.
"...hell she got dumped in, that breeder's camp?" a voice said from across the way. "It's gnawed at my gut for two years. Makes me feel like a damn coward."
Recognizing something about the voice, the Professor took a chance to peek out from the vehicle door. There was a tall fair-skinned and dark-haired man in a brown jacket, blue shirt, and blue jeans who he didn't recognize, a young, chocolate-skinned woman with long brown hair in blue jeans, a pink shirt, and a striped red overshirt that he similarly did not know, and a young fair-skinned woman in dark pants, a dark shirt, and a beige coat with flowing brown hair who might have looked familiar... if it wasn't for the figure of the dark man standing at their head.
"You would have saved her if you could've", the pink-shirted woman said to the man, consoling him. He was wearing grey pants with a brown belt, and heavy brown shoes. His shoulders were heavy under his beige jacket and orange shirt, betraying a sense of responsibility and pain that he was all too ineffective at hiding. He sighed slightly before he finally let out an answer. "Don't be too sure," he managed to get out.
He was bigger than before, both in strength and weight. His mustache was gone. But there was no mistaking it: this was his former companion and ever dear friend: Rembrandt Brown. A smile broke out across his face, breath filled his lungs, the Professor stepped out into the frame of the vehicle door... and Maggie reached up, clamping a hand across his mouth and pulling him to the floor.
"Are you CRAZY?" she hissed at him.
"UnHAND me, woman!" the Professor's muffled voice shot back. "He's my..."
"Do you want to get him killed?!" she hissed back. The Professor stopped struggling for the merest of seconds, long enough to hear something in the distant sky, something he hadn't perceived through the almost reunion with his dear friend. The rumbling whir: a Manta ship, approaching quickly from above. It hovered in the sky for a few seconds, scanning, probing, searching for signs of any unauthorized life. There was a hurried voice from the other building he couldn't make out, and then, in a quick movement, the Manta slipped through the sky and away.
The danger was over. Peeking out once more, the Professor saw that Rembrandt and the others were gone. But he was alive... and without the impostor. What did this mean?
He stood up, looking out the vehicle door at the sky above, resting a hand on the frame, and sighed. The merest of seconds to consider the situation passed... and then a body jumped on him from behind, hooked his left arm, wrapped two legs around his, and a cloth clamped over his mouth. He smelled the sweet and medicinal smell of ether for the briefest of moments before his body began to give way.
"I was going to give you a little more time to let some secrets spill, 'Magg," Maggie said into the Professor's ear. "I didn't think for a second you were just some lost slave out to rescue some breeder. But if you insist on calling the Mantas down like that, we're going to have to move up to interrogation a bit quicker than planned."
The last thing he saw before he passed out was Maggie removing a device from her vest, opening a portal, then dragging him into the spiral center.
The metal wall of the featureless cell eventually stopped spinning, and the world came back into view. The Professor slowly sat up on the bed, and the familiar sound of chains drawing against one another echoed off of the bare walls. It was just like a buried memory. Held down, interrogated, chained...
To the basement pillar. By the impostor. Being left behind. The years spent blamed for things he never did.
"...give you a little more time..." her voice floated back into his mind, unclear at first, until... "'Magg..."
An anger flared in the Professor, something he hadn't felt in some time, as a metallic thunk filled the air. Someone was coming in, and it was too late to play possum. A young soldier came in, medium height and build, in green fatigues and a buzzcut, holding the ring of keys that had just opened the door. The tag on his chest read "Parks."
"I have had just about ENOUGH of bearing the responsibilities of bad actors that have NO RELATION to myself," he bellowed. "I am NO charlatan," he shouted, "I am NO conscientious objector," he yelled, "And I am NO KROMAGG," he roared.
"We know," the soldier answered. The Professor could hear a tinge of shame in the man's voice, and from the indirect admission, calmed considerably. "You do, now?" the Professor inquired.
"Yes, Professor Arturo," Parks replied, taking the ring of keys and undoing his binds. "In fact, we might have a lot to thank you for."
The Professor's eyes narrowed as the chains fell from his wrists. "How did you..." he started, just before the man produced a wallet from his pocket and handed it to the former prisoner. The Professor held it in front of his face for the merest of seconds, humphed, then nodded at the soldier. Taking his outstretched hand, the Professor was on his feet. "Now what was this about thanking me?" he asked.
The command center was a bustle of activity. Maps of Earth lined the wall, though upon closer inspection, a few of the landmasses had the slightest of differences: North and South America disconnected in one, Greenland half its usual size, Japan extended more towards Taiwan... and each of the maps was covered with magnetized markers of varying colors. Red seemed to be overrepresented on the bulk of them.
People were huddled over equipment making calls in a buzzing tandem of communication, and taking notes on clipboards or small laptop computers as they did so. The Professor wondered off-hand how his Del was doing those worlds away. A window was open and looking outside on a blue sky, a track that ran as far as the Professor could see, and soldiers running in steady and uniform lines every few seconds. Humans, thankfully.
A familiar face looked up from a table a dozen feet away, turned quickly to a group of men in green fatigues around her to whisper something, then left the men with a large white mug in hand, coming straight for the Professor. It was Maggie.
Her head the slightest bit lowered and sucking her full lips in ever so slightly in what might pass as slight embarrassment, she offered the steaming cup to the Professor. Taking it without a word, he looked into the piping hot mug and saw simple water inside. Maggie instantly thrust her hands into pockets on either side of her fatigues, and produced a tea bag from one, and a bundle of ice cubes wrapped in a paper towel in the other.
"I wasn't sure if you wanted hot or cold, tea or straight," she said. The Professor raised his eyebrows slightly, then took the tea bag alone from her right hand. "I suppose it was polite not to assume," he said, his anger fading, "though you may have been correct had you guessed well, Captain."
"Maggie," she answered. "And let me know if you need a top up."
She turned back to her men at the table. The Professor turned the mug to better begin his tea preparations: on the side of the mug in bold letters, he read downwards, "WORLD'S GREATEST WIFE!", with a small cartoon face that resembled the Captain herself, smiling at the end of the "e" in "wife". Puzzled, the Professor stared at the mug for the briefest of seconds, before his escort from the cell spoke softly from behind him, low enough for nobody but the two to hear.
"She never lets anyone drink from the mug, man," Parks said wryly. The Professor nodded, still slightly confused, but the soldier soon beckoned toward the central table. "General wants to see you," he said. The Professor followed his escort, sipping at his tea along the way.
In short order, the two were at the command table, and an older man in a black suit and white navy hat turned to meet them. His jaw was square and strong, and under his greying hair peeking out from under his hat, two strong and dark eyes stared into the Professor's, showing both a resolute strength, as well as something else more appreciative.
"General Redfield," the man said, extending a hand. The Professor reached out to clasp, and two strong pumps later, the man continued. "I run this little outpost of human ingenuity. And I believe you're the one we have to thank for this potential breakthrough."
The Professor looked to Maggie, who gave him a silent thumbs up. But before he could respond, The general turned his head to the table, picked up something, then held it out in an open hand: it was the Kromagg door key. The Professor sipped at his tea, nodding slightly, his eyes meeting The general's. "A souvenir from a previous encounter," he said, elaborating no further. The general seemed to accept the explanation for the time being. "I don't know where you got one of these Ketran-class energy field disablers, but this could be just what we've been looking for," he said with a smile.
"We've been monitoring the Kromagg's new Manta design to attack the homeworld for some time, and up to just recently, we were able to work around the barrier they put up to keep intruders out to get a man or two in, see what's up," he continued. "It was quite a surprise to see a civilian wandering around a shielded, top secret, Kromagg invasion facility in nothing more than a sweater vest."
Redfield smiled, waving the door key at the Professor slightly. "Were you also responsible for the explosions in the nerve center that brought that thing offline?"
(Mr. Brown... Miss Welles...) the Professor thought.
"I'm afraid not," he replied. "I arrived here by portal, and never even entered the facility."
"What kind of portal?" a voice said from behind him. Maggie approached, a pitcher of steaming water in one hand and another bag of tea in the other. The Professor held out the mug and accepted his refreshments. "An odd, twisting portal. An indigo color, like native jewelry, or possibly eggplant," he explained. "It appeared suddenly, and I entered it to find myself a short distance from the compound."
Maggie looked to The general. "Marcellus," she said, to which Redfield nodded. "There's someone on the inside of specific 'Magg facilities," he explained, "who gives us little pieces of information. Sometimes it's enough to slip a squad past a shield, sometimes it's information on where they move their breeding camps to. Never enough to make any real headway against the 'Maggs, but enough to get a few people out, throw a wrench in their plans."
"And you think these portals are his doing?" the Professor asked. Redfield nodded, though more in contemplation than agreement. "The two are certainly related," he surmised. "But with this latest setback at losing the Manta, I don't know what the 'Maggs are going to do. They're certainly going to increase security, bring the fields back online. Marcellus may be dead already."
The Professor felt as if someone had punched him in the gut. "And the prisoners?" he asked fearfully. The general shook his head, but with a smile that reassured. "Won't lay a hand on them," he answered, "but we'll still need your help." He held up the door key once more. "You brought this to us. Do you have any experience with it?"
Nodding, the Professor began to explain. "Short of breaking it into pieces and examining its component parts, I have run every test I can upon it," he said. "Sympathetic resonance is higher at specific frequencies, particularly when temperature stress and physical pressure is applied to the various inscribed shapes inscribed at certain intervals and with specific combinations. Though it is critical to remember that without precise physical manipulation of the various circular markings, the key has a tendency to lose its overall..."
"Get this man in touch with Vale, please," The general interrupted, smiling slightly. "If this thing does what I think it does, we may have a 'Magg skeleton key on our hands."
Weeks passed. The machines, hardware, and analysis software were a far cry from what the Professor could afford on his former meager salary, and were even years beyond that. The key was subject to a battery of tests, with every vibration, every frequency, every output of the slightest radiation recorded, quantified, mapped, and understood.
The Professor drank enough tea from the wife mug to fund a small export business, and as the continuous and successful data came in from the enigmatic door key, Captain Maggie Beckett seemed ever more amenable and willing to get him the best of what she could scrounge up from the mess, calling in favors, or even bringing from off-world when she had orders to carry out elsewhere.
On most nights, the two rested in their separate quarters. The Professor was placed in a room that smelled as if it had previously been a storage closet for a particularly foul set of unsecured ammonia bottles, but they did offer him a decent bed and table set up for his relative comfort. Maggie, when she wasn't running with the boys outside or doing push-ups in the bunk room, tried to make herself scarce and ready for a soon coming operation. She never knew when it would be, just that it was inevitable.
They spent a single night in the bunks amid the boys playing cards, her on the top bunk of a gently snoring soldier below, and the Professor sitting upon a rolling office chair, sipping from the mug. They spent nearly an hour talking of their lives before the impostor, and the Kromaggs. The Professor felt a twinge of guilt at any thought that had crossed his mind of his problems back on Azure Gate Bridge world, when these interdimensional creatures had left such devastation in their wake across multiple worlds.
When the subject of the Professor's late wife Christina came up, his eyes shined with a mix of both happiness and regret, having lost her at a younger age. A similar gentle probe into Maggie's past provided the Professor a single word in an answer: "Steven," she said softly, then she turned over in the top bunk. "Sleepy," she finished, saying not another word. The Professor watched her lie still for a few seconds, glancing shortly at the mug, before finishing his tea. He set the mug on the table next to the bunk, then stood and walked out to finish some more calculations before bed.
The mug sat upon the table, its remaining contents slowly evaporating to leave a small brown ring at the bottom. Maggie slept, with its everpresent words watching over her.
"And... that... will finish it," the Professor remarked. His work saved, the equations triple checked, and the experiments all a success, the base was now in the possession of hundreds of Ketran emulator keys, waiting only for the final download of the equations necessary to brute force any shield the Kromaggs could place against them.
There was a buzz of excitement about the base. It felt like a fuse of unknown length slowly burning to its powdery target, everyone knowing that something was going to happen, just not exactly when or what. Just a week before, Marcellus had provided the human encampment a set of coordinates, a world slightly adjacent to the dimension from which the experimental Manta was ruined, but then, he went utterly silent. There was a facility there, but reports from the ground only told of a moderate concentration of Kromaggs, and otherwise no activity. The silence from the insider, the lack of activity... it all added up to a lot of unknowns.
Maggie was dressed in her black and grey urban camo, and wiped down her AR-15 once more, rechecking the bindings on her thigh and vest. Everything was in excellent shape, and she was ready. Her beeper alerted her to a meeting, so she secured her gear, and headed to the command center. On the way, the Professor was exiting the lab, removing his white coat to reveal his long-sleeved black buttoned heavy black shirt, black pants, and black boots. Laying his coat aside on a nearby chair, he spoke. "Miss Beckett," he greeted. Maggie scoffed in good humor. "Always with the formalities, Professor," she answered, handing him the piping hot mug. He took it, raised it in thanks, and the two made their way to the meeting.
"There they are," General Redfield said, with a small crowd of men in lab coats, tac gear, and military suits present. He motioned towards the back, then continued. "Marcellus has been out of contact for a while now. And as you know, with the Manta disabled, we're back to our original orders: get our people out, and keep as many alive as we can on the way. Translocation teams are ready: two on point for takedown, one medic, and the translocation and tech specialist. We move in from every side in exactly one hour, hit them as hard as possible, and get back here with our people. Your jammers will be active and the 'Maggs might be feeling smug in their little shield, but nobody gets cocky. And we don't stop until every 'Magg is either cold in the ground, or barren, decrepit, and forgotten as God intended. Understood?!"
The crowd exploded in a single unified roar of resolute strength. General Redfield smiled. "Dismissed!" he shouted, nodding to a team of scientists at a nearby console. They nodded in return, then set the machine to broadcast the new codes and equations to each of the emulator keys held by the soldiers.
Teams by the hundreds crowded outside, pouring out of the compound. The Professor squinted at the setting sun, its rays nearly blinding him despite the angle after weeks spent cooped up in the research room. He heard the sound of beeping all around him, the sounds of the emulator keys signifying their receipt of the new equations, and the "ding" that signalled a confirmed good receipt.
A slight slap at his bicep. The Professor turned, and Maggie stood there, stone-faced and ready. "Stay with me," she said simply. He nodded, looking between her, their specialist Parks, and their other enforcer, an Italian man with a large nose and thin mustache named Farina. And the procession began.
Teams of four stood in small groups about the compound, and sliding device after sliding device was raised and fired directly in front of them, opening dozens upon dozens of portals. The familiar whooshing sound and the slight blowing wind brought the Professor back to happier times, and every new opening burgeoned his determination at finding his lost companions.
"Hold on Miss Welles, Mr. Brown..." he whispered. Parks lifted their device, fired the beam, and opened the portal. In seconds, they were in.
Multicolored lights ran the length of the tunnel as the exotic matter held, stronger and more cleanly than the Professor had ever felt before. Apparently, this was the power of military expenditure and research, in the stead of basement experimentation, toothpicks, watch microchips, and glue. Parks and Farina flew through the vortex, hands in front of their chests, ready in a moment to sling their AR-15s off their backs the second they hit the ground. Maggie's eyes were dead set and deadly serious at the coming exit, hand caressing her combat knife.
And seconds later, they were through. Each of the members of the team came to a quick, squatted crouch on the road far outside the Kromagg compound, then sprang quietly up to unsling their guns and ready them. Portals opened in every direction around them, their flowing and liquid-like lights lighting up the still darkening evening around the facility. Scores of men and women stayed low, crouch running ever forward towards the distant compound ahead of them, seemingly unprotected by anything but the walls of the buildings that surrounded a taller building at the center.
Drawing closer and knowing what was coming next, Parks and the rest of the tech specialists pulled their emulator keys out of their pockets, vests, and zippered pouches, holding them in front of them as they moved forward. One by one, the keys came to rest inside of a large, transparent bubble of blue energy, which lit up the closer the soldiers and their keys got to them. Judging by the angle, the Professor guessed that the shield probably extended around the entire facility.
Parks looked back at the others, nodded, then pushed the emulator key into the blue. It brightened, struggled... then a sphere of emptiness opened in front of him, providing a completely clear view of the asphalt roads and buildings before them. The Professor glanced left and right, seeing that the other teams had made similar progress, pushing through the small sphere openings to make their ways into the compound. Parks beckoned them in, and after Farina and Maggie took point with guns at the ready, the final two entered, pushing forward into the depths of the complex.
For the several minutes they snuck through the compound, there were few sounds other than their steps. The other teams, whatever they were up against, assailed their zones with such professional stealth that nothing seemed out of the ordinary. At one point, Maggie herself decked a Kromagg patrol in the temple, sending him to the floor in a crumpled heap, then spun around and drove her combat knife into the chest of his partner, holding his mouth as he came to rest on the floor.
As he slowly faded from blood loss and shock, Maggie clutched his mouth harder and drew her eyes close to his. "If I wasn't on a time crunch, I'd take your eyes, too," she growled, holding the Kromagg until the lights dimmed in his alien pupils. When she was sure he was down, the team dragged the bodies into a nearby room and left them on the floor.
Hallway by hallway, the team slid the emulator key into one large and shielded cell after another, fingers on their lips and beckoning to the captive women in white gowns inside them to their side. They rose from cushioned mattresses, double beds, bunk beds, or simple sleeping bags with heavy blankets, one after another, from their bare cells that featured little more than a communal toilet and a sink with running water. The team burgeoned from a mere half dozen, to almost 20, with the Professor and Parks in the back, and Maggie and Farina taking point. The pitter-patter of the barefoot women in the middle, huddling close together for safety and warmth, quietly filled the air.
Several minutes passed, bringing the group to an unwieldly number, before they heard a sound ahead. Maggie made a quiet but sharp inhaled whistle, barely indistinguishable from a potential bird which had gotten lost. The whistle returned to her, and another team came into view. Their leader, a tall and clean-shaven dark-skinned man with narrow eyes, a large nose, and a slight splash of dried blood on the right side of his chin, pointed towards a nearby door leading to a street outside. Maggie nodded, and getting Farina and Parks' attention, made hand signals to indicate the two take their liberated outside to be the first ones home. Parks handed the key to Maggie, then with a nod, he and Farina went outside, while she and the Professor moved deeper into the facility.
They were only a few minutes further in before an alarm sounded. Kromagg shouts filled the air, and the sounds of gunfire and thundering boots echoed down the halls. In a single second, the Professor looked towards the interior of the facility, then motioned towards Maggie.
"Give me the key!" he demanded, beckoning strongly.
"Why? We have to get out of here!" she answered, but the Professor shook his head. "Don't you see? The nerve center of this hellish place is at our fingertips. We can bring this madhouse to its knees. And we can find Miss Welles!"
"She might be with the other captives," Maggie reasoned, but the Professor was adamant. "There's no guarantee!" he shot back quietly. Maggie pulled him back into a side room as Kromaggs ran by, shouting their guttural language. "And with these brutes occupied with your people outside," he continued, "this provides us the opportunity to strike at their core. You said yourself that they are trained to chase prey and directly face all dangers. Will there be more than a skeleton crew within?"
Maggie's mind raced, and found little to argue with, her mind going towards the C-4 in her vest. She nodded. "Ok, but you stick with me and do exactly what I say," she relented, then taking a quick look down the hallways, pulled the Professor towards the center of the complex.
Dodging the thundering sounds of the bellowing Kromagg soldiers was easy enough, but the timing between their appearances was crucial. Luckily, as the seconds gave way to minutes, fewer and fewer patrols were about as the gunfire got hotter and heavier outside with each passing moment. The Professor could swear that he could make out the faint sounds of portals opening and the telltale whooshing sound of people fleeing through them, but perhaps it was only his wishful thinking.
"We're not going to stick around and kill every 'Magg on the base," Maggie said, hurrying through another corridor. "Whether we find a mainframe to blow or your Wade, the 'Maggs are going to be back here in no time. We're running out of time."
"I am keenly aware, Miss Beckett," the Professor answered, his mind racing. But his mind was more focused on Wade, and how he was going to find her. If they did manage to get her out with the initial wave of escapees, well, that was enough for him. But if they could only access a computer, download its data, find her name or picture, track her somehow... And if not, a munitions room might have contained more than enough to at least destroy this infernal place.
The spartan and military hallways of bare concrete and metal on the outskirts of the facility gave way to a more alien interior. Hallways lit by bright lights from above, spaced feet from one another, lit the ground upon which they ran. The walls occasionally opened into windowed displays, holding alien clothing, odd devices, strange plantlife, and other trophies from interdimensional conquest.
Running by a medical room, time seemed to freeze. In a moment, the Professor took in its entirety: charts on the wall, computers flashing warnings on a distant table. Shelves filled with strange chemicals. And a woman in a medical gown, strapped to the table. The fair-skinned eastern woman's short black hair lay in twisted strands, covering half of her face. Her eyes were closed, and there were the tiny stains of tear rivulets running down her cheeks. In an instant, the Professor stopped, then dashed into the room. She was barely breathing.
"What are you...?" Maggie started and spoke from behind him, then stopped, eyes on the woman upon the table. Without a word, she turned to the open door and moved her head slightly, listening carefully. "I'll cover us," she finished.
In an instant, the woman's binds were undone. She exhaled sharply, then weakly lifted her hands in futile self-defense, whimpering softly in defeat. A stunned moment of familiar memories rose up and passed through the Professor's mind, and in an instant, were gone, replaced only with a single name escaping his lips.
"Mary," he whispered.
The woman slowly opened her eyes, confusion passing between them. "Who...?" she whispered back, then a realization. She struggled weakly, but the Professor shook his head. "No, not a trick," he answered. "I am real. And neither I, nor my friends, would have escaped without you."
Mary's body tensed, disbelieving. "Quinn, Rembrandt, myself..." the Professor started. Mary blinked twice in slow remembrance. "And Wade..." the Professor continued. The gowned woman in his arms stared, thoughts swirling. Slowly, her eyes widened, if only slightly. Her mouth opened, but nothing came out.
The Professor's heart skipped a beat. "You..." he started, then composing himself, restarted, "You know where she is?" After years of waiting, working, wondering, after the anxious worry and uncertainty, after the planning and plotting, an unfamiliar feeling worked its way back into his mind, after being buried for so very long. With a single nod of this angel in white, the Professor once again felt it: hope.
"Storage..." she managed to get out. "Two rights, two hallways, one left, left side..."
In a flash, the Professor was on his feet, the angel in white in his arms, and next to the door. Maggie exchanged glances with him, then before the Professor could say a word, she simply stated, "Two rights, two hallways, left, left. Stay behind me." He nodded, then she pressed forward and they were on their way.
The doorless room was shielded, but it fell just as quickly to the emulator key as the perimeter. Inside, the room was dusty, and its shelves were covered with a large number of assorted items from small devices with multiple buttons, to long metal objects with pointed ends and a trigger, from crates marked with Kromagg writing, to spare parts for vehicles of unknown make.
Mary weakly lifted her hand to point at a stack of containers, several feet in length, lying on their sides haphazardly in the middle of the room. Laying her gently upon the floor, the Professor hurried towards them, brushing aside dust from transparent glass to get a look at what was inside. In one of the grey ones, there was the disembodied head of an old and bald man submerged in a gelatinous green liquid, and obviously long dead. Wiping away the dust upon another, the green liquid had solidified, encasing a blonde woman with her knees to her chest and her arms around them, also dead.
The third container was longer, white, and egg-shaped. With trembling hands, the professor rolled the container over to reveal its viewport, and the naked woman submerged in bluish-clear liquid within: rounded chin, brown hair, tall nose. Her forehead was marred with a rectangular scar, but there was no doubt about it.
It was Wade.
The Professor leaped to his feet, grabbing a nearby fire axe, brandishing it next to the egg-shaped container. "Can I release her?!" he whispered in an unintended volume raised by desperation, looking at Mary. She shook her head, then reached her arms out to him. He put the axe down, ran to her side, then picked her up, carrying her to the container. Struggling to stay conscious, Mary drew her eyes up and down the capsule, until they rested upon a small black button at the base. Following her carefully, the Professor pushed the button, and after a piece of the capsule raised then slid away, a panel slowly revealed itself. With her last ounce of strength, Mary placed her hand upon the panel, then passed out.
A short beeping rhythm played out, then the capsule slowly opened, spreading a light blue mist through the room. Cradling Mary in one arm, the Professor put his hand to Wade's neck, feeling for a pulse. His face brightened. "Miss Welles?" he whispered. There was no response.
"We good?" Maggie spoke from the door. "I don't know how much longer they..."
A shot rang out. A bright green light lit up the room, then immediately darkened. Maggie screamed in pain and rage, firing her AR-15 only once down the intermittently lit corridor, piercing the distant Kromagg directly through the chest. Setting Mary down, the Professor ran to her side, only to see the horrendous black mark that burned straight through her vest and into her sternum.
"Stay back!" she strained out through grit teeth, pushing the Professor back. "The Nobelium can still... spread." Not knowing what to do, he knelt a few feet away, mouth moving but nothing coming out. Seconds later, she nodded, and he came closer, pulling her behind the door frame as a pained cry escaped through her teeth. "You... get those girls... out of here, understand?" she struggled out. He nodded, hearing the sound of bootsteps and combat barks down the hall. Maggie indicated with her head towards a distant shelf. "Trans... location devices," she whispered. "Really old... should get you..."
"Hold on, I'll release Miss Welles, then..." the Professor started. Maggie pushed him back, microseconds before a large blast of green energy screamed past his face and exploded into the wall behind them. In a smooth motion, she whipped her sidearm out of the holster on her thigh, then shot the distant Kromagg through the forehead. "Just enough... to get those two... out before... we're overrun," she finished in a pained voice, firing down the hallway.
In a flash, the Professor was on his feet, overturning a table of tools between him and the door, pulling Mary behind it and sliding Wade's capsule to safety. Maggie fired wildly down the hallway at the only angle she could, keeping the Kromaggs from advancing any further, while the Professor worked to get Wade out of the capsule. Wires in her body stretched her skin and popped out one by one, but despite the obvious pain to result from the disconnection, she still lay limp.
Energy blasts started to fill the room as the Kromaggs gained ground, but without concern, the Professor leaped up, grabbed one of the old timers, then dove back behind the table as quickly as he could, nearly taking a blast in the back for his trouble. The model was black, six inches long and three wide with buttons upon it: a larger circular white button on the top, two triangular white ones to the left and right underneath it pointing up and down, another smaller circular red button between them, a 3x3 grid of unmarked rectangular white buttons below that, and four odd ports on the sides. Pushing the larger button on the top, the grey grid buttons lit up red. Nothing happened when he pushed the central button, but when he pushed the triangular button on the left that was pointing up, he felt power begin to thrum in the device.
Maggie cried out as she was struck once more in the left shoulder, and her body slumped to the floor. "Miss Beckett!" the Professor exclaimed through the light blue mist. The bootsteps thundered closer. The timer hummed in his hand to a vibratory strength so strongly, that made it feel like it was going to shiver into pieces. Two Kromaggs burst into the room, shouting in broken English. "All right, I give up!" the Professor shouted back. "I'm going to stand up now, slowly, and put down my weapon," he drew out as long as he could, stalling for time.
A slight stirring from the ground. The Kromaggs looked down at the burned and bloody mess of the woman they had put down, and saw her body shudder. She choked out soft cries, drawing their attention. Her watery eyes closed slowly.
"Steven..." she whispered. "Baby... I'm sorry..."
A metallic ring filled the air. A grenade fell to the ground, clinking on the floor. A crocodile tear finished its descent to the ground, and Maggie's eyes suddenly flew open, teeth grit, as she used the last of her strength to kick the backs of the knees of the two Kromaggs in the room, then pulled them backwards.
"...I couldn't take more with me!" she shouted, then screamed a triumphant, primal scream of final revenge.
Time slowed to a crawl. The Professor turned and slammed his finger down upon the center button of the timer, exploding open a swirling red vortex on the far side of the room. As fast as he could, he scooped up Mary and Wade in two large arms, then turned his back to the scene behind him. A sudden explosion... and the pressure wave pushed him and his two charges through the vortex. Everything went black.
Worlds away, sitting in his art studio, a grey-haired and bearded fair-skinned man sat in a chair, a black blazer barely keeping his older body warm as he pondered the vision before him. A worried pair of hands clasped around his nose and mouth, and he winced. He closed his eyes, shook his head in disbelief, then buried his face in his trembling hands.
The door opened, and a mature fair-skinned woman with longer brown hair and a blue pantsuit entered, her mouth open slightly in worry. She recognized what had just happened.
"Dad?" she asked carefully. He didn't answer. "Another vision?"
"Yes, Claire," he whispered back. "And not a good one."
She nodded. "We'll talk about it later. They're almost here."
He breathed deeply in a sad sigh, took his cane, then stood to walk with her, but she shook her head and gently eased him back. "It's ok, I'll bring them here," she said. "You just rest, ok? When you've made sense of it, we'll discuss everything."
He shook his head and stood regardless. "I should be there," he answered. Reluctantly, his daughter helped him up, and they made their way out of the art gallery and to the courthouse, awaiting the arrival of the Sliders. The man felt a pit in his stomach, knowing he would have to be the one to explain.
"But you must know this. I foresaw the death of your friends."
"And the Professor."
"And Miss Welles."
"I've never, ever, been wrong..."