VIII

Click.

Whirr.

Buzz.

The click of the middle crown.

A whirr from the internal mechanism.

A buzz of denial.

It clicked in her mind. She realized what happened.

Her mind whirred in desperation. Her only way out was gone.

A buzz of fear and adrenaline shot through the base of her skull and into her brain.

Flash.

Thunk.

Crack.

A flash from the device.

The thunk of a fist into a soldier.

The crack of a gunshot.

In a flash, the soldiers grabbed at their weapons.

With a thunk, the younger Sainne’s body hit the floor. It gave them pause.

Composure cracked, and discipline shattered.

The device clicked off, but it was already too late.

The whirr of motion rippled into a tornado.

A buzz of gunfire cut the other Sainne down.

In a flash, White Rabbit knew what was about to happen.

With another thunk, she dropped the trooper ahead.

And with a crack, she was hit.

Flash.

Thunk.

Crack.

Click.

Whirr.

Buzz.

She was bleeding. Motion danced in the corner of her eyes. Scattered bursts of fire punctuated orders to cut it out. Confusion reigned.

Her stumbling steps wouldn’t carry her far enough. Some of the Anarakians had cottoned on. In their clap-trap back-and-forth, a few kept their heads. The time gates would pick their new master – that could wait. Their prey couldn’t.

Rabbit knew this. Adrenaline and will suppressed the shooting pain in her shoulder. She was practically caught. Sainne’s duplicity had doused his soon-to-be subjects in chaos, and in that riptide she had found a chance. One that was rapidly closing.

She needed help. She needed to heal. She would get no such chance.

She was in the grasp of the enemy with her greatest tool out of juice.

The time gauge – useless.

The elder Sainne, the one she had followed down the twisting vortex of unreality, used the same trick as he had before. Old to her now, fresh to his counterpart. The Talhesian Torture Device flashed brilliantly, blinding everyone.

Rabbit had seen it coming. Gripping desperately to the present, she dragged her attention back to that part of her brain that could strategize and plan. And so, as soon as Sainne made his move, she made hers. She landed a blow – a solid thunk – into her distracted and unprepared captor.

It was the beginning of the mirrors. She and Sainne, Sainne and the guards. Everything reflected everything else. Sainne made his move, she made hers. She struck a guard, so did Sainne. But the mirrored path led inexorably towards oblivion.

Sainne took a gun from the reeling guard. With a crack, he dispatched his mirror image. And in reflection, some of the guards reacted. Instinctively avenging their erstwhile master, they let out a volley of answering cracks, turning the last Sainne into Swiss cheese.

A corridor.

White Rabbit’s balance somehow kept, and she jammed her foot into the floor. Redirecting herself in a pin-point turn, she dived through the entranceway that seemed to swim up from nowhere. Rounding the corner as a renewed cascade of fire leapt after her. They were picking up on what happened. The Time Peace agent was escaping.

The metal tunnel seemed to twist and spin before her eyes. Another vortex to tumble down. Another way to lose herself. And that was her only hope. To get lost, and then to pray. She had nothing else.

The time gauge. It was empty.

She had screwed up. Badly.

In her desperate rush to reach the rabbit hole, she hadn’t considered what she’d need on the other side.

When the Anarakian holding her doubled over from the unexpected blow, White Rabbit knew what she had to do. Even with Sainne’s distraction, escaping a horde of soldiers wouldn’t be easy. She clicked in the middle crown of her time gauge.

But instead of the descending dome of the arena, her senses were met with a strange hollow whirr. The time gauge seemed to struggle to answer her command. Then it failed entirely.

With a rattling buzz, it told White Rabbit the horrible truth. She was out of juice. It was wasted. The crazy blasts she had used to vaporize Twenty-Six and knock out the power to Alpha Sphere had depleted its reserves. It had nothing left to give.

And that’s when panic carried her off. A frenetic sprint out of the time gate chamber. Anywhere else.

As the enemy sergeants demanded discipline from the men who had instinctively fired on the Anarak, they unwittingly stifled the response of those who witnessed their prisoner bound off. Long enough to limit Rabbit’s wounds to the piercing pain in her shoulder. Not long enough to get her free and clear.

She heard the discordant beat of footsteps behind her. The seemingly spinning pathway ahead suddenly opened up. And she saw herself loop around. She wasn’t running away from the Anarakians – she was running straight towards them!

Her tattered mind and winded spirit couldn’t make sense of the scene. But some dormant sliver of self-preservation kicked into gear and took the wheel. As she bolted into the time gate chamber again, she dove for cover. The Anarakians she had thought she’d left in the dust had their own weapons raised, and soon they unloaded–

At Sainne’s men. White Rabbit clambered for the nearest excuse for cover. Some crates and carts full of arcane equipment meant to keep the time gates ticking. Her shattered psyche reeled as she found herself in the same room she had just fled, but with the Anarakians blasting at themselves.

No. Reality began to crystalize again. They weren’t the same. There was something different about them, but White Rabbit’s frayed mind couldn’t sift through the details. Somehow, she had looped back into the same chamber, but a different crew was holding it down. And they were cleansing the place of Sainne’s contingent.

She scrambled into a corner. The din of weapons fire – a cacophony of spitting self-preservation – covered her retreat. She dug herself deep into the carts, boxes, and haulers in the corner, burying herself in the protective layers of precious technology.

The two forces kept chewing at each other, and even though White Rabbit couldn’t see them anymore, she could clock their dwindling life force. The chatter of gunfire was winding down to sporadic bursts. Whoever was left must have grabbed cover. Or there weren’t many left.

And as the battle slowly burned itself out, and the pain in her shoulder flared anew, White Rabbit realized what had happened. It offered little hope. But some.

She hadn’t lost it completely. Sainne’s goons weren’t snuffing themselves out. This was a new chamber, and they had run into the soldiers that really belonged here. The ones who answered to the master of this facility. The Anarak known as the Black Skull.

Little comfort.

Little hope.

But some.

***

“You have created a disruption,” the Black Skull’s mechanized translator droned. The hulking figure stood in his mechanical containment suit, staring down from his perch. The room was mostly empty, aside from a large projector in the center, inactive at the moment, and the tubes running towards it. The grated balcony and the stairs winding up to it along the curved walls were some of the only other features breaking up the empty space. Black Skull glared down from it. “Twenty-two hours in duration.”

“All things considered, a rather minor distraction,” Sainne replied calmly. He was perfectly composed, perfectly whole. Not a scratch on him after the time gate network reconstituted him. After the blackout had ended. And in the newly constructed body, the consciousness of the elder Sainne was deposited, being the last one to be destroyed. He had won. And a little of that lingering triumph was found in his voice as he continued nonchalantly, “In fact, by rabbit hole standards, this delay was positively swift.”

“Do not omit the key variable,” the Black Skull’s buzzing vocalizer reprimanded. His natural voice would not be heard through the transparent mask which encased his face. Or what once had been his face. A continuously running black fluid fell over the once human features, contained by the clear plastic. The shape given to the fluid had notable gaps, empty spaces where flesh should have been. Even through the oily substance it was clear, only a skull remained.

“The objective of a meta-temporal displacement,” he continued.

“Please, Maksim, let’s not have this posturing of outrage,” Sainne replied, suddenly cold. He took to the stairs as he continued, closing the distance between himself and his accuser. “If my arrangements had placed any meta-timeline’s tellings in jeopardy, our glorious Supreme Commander would not have stood for it when they were first made. And even if he felt uncharacteristically lenient in that regard, no doubt your shrill concern would be ringing in his ear. Your chance to make this grievance has long passed.”

“A deficiency has been caused,” the Black Skull replied, undeterred, even as the other Anarak came face-to-face with him. “A delay in intelligence. Additionally, the network shutdown has granted Time Peace the initiative. Six operations accounted for, as of last report.”

“Irrelevancies. But is that it? Cracks developing in your steadfast appearance of loyalty to our First Anarak?”

“Your eccentricities are tolerated. Non-compliance is not.”

“Is he here now? Prying into secrets not meant for his eyes, perhaps? Why, Maksim, I knew you were one of us, after all.”

“You have disrupted operations. You will account for this.”

“All this disruption would have happened whether I was alive or dead,” Sainne dismissed. “In case you missed it, your unusual insistence on inconsequential trivialities is the very thing that has just betrayed your vulnerability. Now, tell the Commander that he will get his report, stop acting so sullen, and then neither of us will tip him off about whatever it is you’d like to keep under wraps.”

The other Anarak ignored Sainne’s wave at the projector below. “Bargaining is not permitted. You have caused irreversible error. Your intended destination was missed. Twenty-two hours.”

“Is that all?” Sainn asked, suddenly at ease, as if he had just snatched the answer to his troubles out of thin air. “Please, Anarak Maksim, give me some credit. I chose my arrival time carefully. No, I did not expect this duel with my counterpart, but the arrangements I had intended to make would have taken time. Time which I had no intention to squander by dividing my attention between negotiation and the elimination of our key variable. I accounted for this. In short, we are still on schedule.”

“Then you will report that fact to the Supreme Commander,” Maksim insisted.

“Certainly. The only questions are how long do you need that report to last, and how much is that time worth?”

The Black Skull leaned forward. The first move he had made all conversation. “Your audacity is remarkable. Agents under my command have been killed. A White Rabbit of the opposition followed you. Is still loose. You seek gratitude? Observe the discretion of my own report.”

“He learns. And here I thought this field was beyond our great scientist,” Sainne chuckled, and turned back towards the stairs.

“Stop. You have not concluded the transaction.”

“Is that so?” Sainne asked at the precipice. “Perhaps I am the student after all, here, as that seemed to be a textbook closing exchange.”

“Arrangements were made. Promises from your counterpart.” the Black Skull explained. The vocalizer’s tone dropped a few notes. “They will be upheld.”

“I really should quibble with how you foist that debt onto me,” Sainne drawled, “but I suppose you’re just waiting for another excuse to keep the Supreme Commander and I locked in a room together. Well, let’s hear it.”

“The Talhesian Torture Device,” the encased Anarak said simply.

Sainne’s eyebrows shot up. “He promised you that? Oh, of course he did. He promised you mine. Ponderously predictable. And fortunately for me, easy enough to accommodate. I am happy to oblige both the spirit and letter of this agreement.”

And Sainne handed over his device. He was only a couple of steps down the stairs when the Black Skull interrupted with a ringing declamation.

“Spirit. Air. Emptiness. The letter has been observed. With characteristic deception. The transaction is not concluded.”

Sainne turned, a malevolent expression back on his face. As his green eyes burned, he hissed, “You wanted my device, you have it. I have honored my counterpart’s bargain. If you aren’t satisfied, take it up with him.”

Anorak Maksim approached, his large form clanging against the grate with each ponderous step. “It is damaged. You will be held to account.”

“Please, do so,” Sainne replied unflinchingly. “But I ask, would you prefer that before or after the opportunity to correct the assassination of the Phoenix has passed?”

The Black Skull did not reply, and Sainne leapt on the opportunity he had created.

“Let me lay it out plainly. I will make my report. In it, I will explain why in three hours the best opportunity to act on my intelligence will emerge, at which point I will have direct orders to act from the Supreme Commander himself. In addition, I will be using that very device you crave. The functional one, if that wasn’t already obvious. For all the insufferable reasons you have painstakingly tried to chastise me with, these events will be inevitable. Then, if after the objective of this meta-temporal displacement has been achieved you still want to adjudicate this matter, I’m sure the Supreme Commander will oblige. Just as I’m sure he will enjoy your hospitality in the meanwhile. So the choice is yours, which do you want? The letter of the agreement, or that empty spirit?”

For a moment longer, the unblinking gaze of the faceless Anarak held. And then, without motion, his buzzing mechanical voice announced, “Our business is concluded. The events recorded.”

“I should hope so,” Sainne said softly, and turned on his heel.

This unfortunate negotiation and business with his counterpart had set him back. But things were about to look up. He had an easy assignment to perform, one which would grant him great favor with the so-called Supreme Commander.

***

The White Rabbit without a number couldn’t believe it. The hum of power, the sudden heat, the buzz of electricity around her. In her weakened stupor, it took a while to process anything more than potential danger. And when she did, when she realized the obvious truth, it hit her like a slap to the face.

The time gate was revving up.

Behind the turquoise surface of the interlocking rings, she was hidden deep in the mechanical guts of the gate. The long tunnel of mysterious machines that gave a full gate its potential. This corridor, unwalked except by the grease monkeys, had proven to be safe harbor for the last… however long it had been. And now, it would prove to be her ticket out of here.

She had hoped for this. But she hadn’t given herself good odds. Much less as she slowly weakened, waiting for something to happen. Slowly slipping into a haze of delirium.

But now something was happening. Exactly, perfectly, to her plan. Her wild gamble.

She was in the back of the same time gate that had spat Sainne onto the station. The only one the cat running this station would let him touch. And now, Sainne stood on the other side, cranking it up for his next big move.

And White Rabbit would be ready to follow him through once again.

…

END TRANSMISSION