“Why would a time traveler want to come here,” Aaron asked, with an indulgent
look on his face. “Interested in the historic activation of this facility?”
“Uh, no. I’m here to destroy the place.”
“There,” Henry cried. “He admits it! He is from Purple Haven!”
“I have no idea who Purple Haven are. Something like those Green Peace pussy
hypocrites? I came to stop you from making a huge mistake. Six hundred years from now your sun is dying. This moon is freezing to death, and the only way people have to deal with the cold is to alter their genetic structure to raise their body temperatures. It’s all happening because of what you did here today. I came to stop it.”
“And how did you travel to this time,” Aaron asked skeptically.
“I used the Spires of Infinity of course. How many other time machines do you know of?”
“There,” Henry cried. “A lie. If you’re a time traveler you’d know that’d cause a paradox.”
“Yeah,” Gabriel grinned. “Exciting, isn’t it. But you have to admit, I do know that this facility is capable of time travel. Who else would know that? I’m sure that’s the sort of secret you like to keep close.”
“I’ve heard enough of this,” Henry growled. “I’m going to prepare to torture
him.”
“You’re making a big mistake here,” Gabriel said. “You’re killing your world
and everyone on it. You need to let me do what I came here to do or this world is dead in six hundred and fifty years. When you finally realize your mistake it’ll be too late. And then it’ll cause a nuclear war. Kaboom! Not only is the sun dying, but the world is also polluted beyond recognition. All because you idiots didn’t think things through before flipping the switch.”
“That’s very imaginative,” Aaron said. “I’ll give you that.”
“There’s just one thing I don’t understand,” Gabriel said. “You can’t create mass out of nowhere. So where did you get enough mass to create a black hole? Sorry, singularity.”
“I’m afraid that’s classified information,” Henry growled.
“Wait,” Gabriel said with sudden understanding. “I know. The missing moon,
right? Sam said there used to be one more moon, but it mysteriously disappeared. Did you somehow crush it down to the size of a pea or something?”
“Something like that,” Aaron shrugged to Henry. “It’s a bit complicated. You have to admit, he does know an awful lot about this place for a common terrorist.”
“I hope you enjoy pain,” Henry said to Gabriel. “I’m really going to enjoy
hurting you.”
“Analyze the jewels you took from me. One of them has a copy of your AIOS.
She’ll confirm everything I’ve told you.”
Pounding on the glass for the tech in the outer room to open up, Henry stormed through it and the outer door to the hallway outside. Sighing, Aaron followed. The glass slid back into place and the tech turned back to his monitors. Gabriel noticed, with some amusement, that he was playing solitaire.
Suddenly the tech began sneezing repeatedly. He coughed, and choked, rubbing
at his eyes for about a minute before he got up and dashed out the door.
Mister Mittens prowled out from under the console, leaping onto the chair, then to the keyboard. Examining it for a second, he deliberately punched in four digits and hit Enter with one of his paws. The glass door slid open and the cat turned to look at Gabriel with that smugly superior expression cats normally wore.
“Good kitty,” Gabriel said with a grin. “I never knew a cat that could unlock a prison cell. How did you know the code.”
“You told me it was thirteen thirty-seven,” Mister Mittens said slowly. “Don’t you remember?”
Eyeing the cat in confusion, Gabriel didn’t even know how he would have
discovered the code in the first place to give it to the cat, much less when he was supposed to have had time to do it.
“The key to the handcuffs is on the edge of the console to your left.”
Picking up the key in his mouth, the cat leapt from the console. He ran through the door and jumped onto Gabriel’s knee, then to his shoulder. Gabriel cupped both hands behind his back, and a heartbeat later a very wet key landed in his palm. Seconds later he was free and gathering his things from a pile on the console. He buckled on his gunbelt and knife, and replaced the Sa’Dhi in their jacks with a wince. He finished by slinging the shotgun over his shoulder.
“Oh, you’re back,” Allie appeared before him. “Excellent. How did you manage to escape? I was shut down when they unplugged my Sa’Dhi from your hand.”
“Mister Mittens to the rescue,” Gabriel said, nodding to the cat on his shoulder.
“Now, where’s Sam?”
“Across the hall,” Mister Mittens said. “Her cell code is twelve thirteen.”
“I knew there had to be some reason for her to keep an annoying furball like you around,” Gabriel said. “Good job, kitty.”
Mister Mittens made a disgusted sound and lay down across Gabriel’s shoulders.
“Call me kitty again and you’ll regret it!”
Stepping cautiously into the hallway, Gabriel looked both ways to find that it was completely empty. Allie was right, there didn’t seem to be many people working here today.
“It sure was lucky that tech was violently allergic to cats,” Gabriel muttered as he drew his pistol and kicked the door in. Sam’s cell was identical to Gabriel’s in every way except mirrored.
“Is that my coffee,” the tech asked without looking up from a game of FreeCell.
“About damn time.”
Thanking god, and Microsoft, for addictive electronic card games, Gabriel walked up behind him and knocked him senseless with the butt of his pistol, toppling him to the floor.
Mister Mittens leapt to the console and punched in the door code. The glass slid aside and Gabriel rushed in to find Sam actually sleeping in her chair, handcuffed to it the same way he’d been.
“Sam,” Gabriel shook her.
How the hell could she sleep at a time like this!
“Oh, hi Gabriel,” Sam yawned. “Oh, and Mister Mittens too. My heroes. You
two keep saving my tail. Sure took you long enough, though. That guy had really bad breath! It was the worst torture imaginable.”
“I had the same treatment,” Gabriel said as he unlocked her handcuffs.
“They took my blood,” Sam said. “And they made me pee in a cup for them right here. I mean, I’ve never had a problem with people watching me piss or anything.
Everyone pisses, so what’s there to be embarrassed about, right, but do you have any idea how hard it is to get the right angle while you’re handcuffed to a chair? Seriously!
Female anatomy is not made for that sort of thing! Messy as hell! I just showered too!
I’m gonna smell like piss for hours now! That nurse was a girl, she should have known better! I wonder why they wanted those things anyway. Kinda weird, don’t you think?”
“What did you say the place where they found all the data on NVM was called,”
Gabriel asked.
“Um, Excel I think,” Sam said.
“I think they just used your blood and piss to invent NVM.”
“Really,” Sam asked as she stood and stretched. “Wow, my piss is famous!
Imagine that.”
“Wait,” Mister Mittens said as Sam picked him up and kissed him on the nose.
“If they used her samples to invent NVM, wouldn’t that mean that we’re going to fail?”