Several important plot elements in this part of the story have changed.
Thanks go to Thomas Schmidt for his excellent comments, and in helping
make everything fit together much more smoothly than it had before.
The next chapter will require a significant rewrite. I'm planning on
taking a break from Bubblegum Slipt after that, and working on the next
"volume" of Blue Lightning.
Slipt is a very taxing story to write. I'm trying to add my own touch to
each of the characters, not leaving any of them as the two-dimensional
figures in the OVAs. Granted, we saw a lot of Sylia's and Priss'
characters. The other two KS, more or less. The rest of the characters
weren't all that deep at all. Without really trying to change canon
(while at the same time admitting that I have _not_ seen Crash!, and
therefore disavow any knowledge of it), I'd like to add some needed depth
to everyone. It's a hard road to follow...
Notwithstanding that, the plot is going to get about three times as
complicated before the story is finished. I feel that I'm a little less
than halfway through telling it now, but I can't say for sure. I have a
rough outline, but no easy way to gauge how much each of the plot elements
are going to add to the story length.
In any case, comments are appreciated. At least let me know if you've
read it. ;)
Damon Casale, damoo@jps.net
Spam, spam! WONDERFUL Spam!! ^_^
-------------- Enclosure number 1 ----------------
"The world was a dark and lonely place, back then. I can barely
imagine living through it any more. I was so angry, so angry at everyone,
I had to let it out somehow or it would kill me. And, when they murdered
Jesse, it was the last straw. Shit, I nearly killed Sylia when she offered
me the chance for revenge, I was so stir-crazy! But, you know? I'm just
glad it's all over. All the hatred, all the vengeance, all of it -- it's
all gone. In the end, we won, and that was what counted."
-- Priscilla Asagiri, television interview, 19th Apr., 2059
Bubblegum Slipt: A Story of the Bubblegum Crisis
A Doctor Who Crossover story
(C) 1997-98 By Damon Casale
damoo@jps.net
II: When the Bough Breaks
Their footsteps echoed hollowly down the corridor leading to the
central complex beneath Raven's garage. Ace was sullen, watching the
suited trio with ill-concealed suspicion as they continued down the
corridor almost mechanically, without so much as a backward glance. She
still knew very little about them. They were freedom fighters, of course.
It wasn't clear so much whom they were fighting against, though. Or
perhaps, better termed, *what* they were fighting against.
She stole a quick glance at the Doctor, still smiling cheerfully
as ever. His trust was not easily misplaced, and she knew without asking
that he trusted these mysterious women, if women they were. True, they had
saved both her's and the Doctor's lives, but that seemed almost an
afterthought. It was as though they were unconcerned with danger unless it
affected them, directly or indirectly.
Ace knew she wouldn't feel safe until they were back in the TARDIS
and on their way.
The complex proper manifested itself as nothing so much as door
after featureless door, corridor after branching corridor down the main
tunnel in which they walked. No welcoming lights offered themselves out
of the gathered gloom clinging in patches to the ceiling and the farther
corners. Barely a sound save their own footsteps greeted them until a
door opened at their approach, revealing an older man in jeans and off-
white T-shirt. He was slim, but well-built, with a tangle of graying hair
raked back over his head.
The man bowed slightly, deferentially, to Ace and the Doctor,
then beckoned them inside. One of the women turned slightly to regard
her for a tense moment, finally turning to follow her comrades into the
darkened room.
The woman lying on the bed was in sorry shape. A needle from an
IV drip was buried in her arm, with the gratis bag of viscous red fluid
hooked on a bit of wire trailing under a hanging shelf just above her. A
small, wheeled table nearby held a dusty machine which hummed faintly,
beeping in a regular fashion -- in double time to the woman's chest, which
was rising and falling nearly imperceptibly. A glass and metal canister
was strapped to what was left of one arm, severed inches below the
shoulder. The canister was filled with a thick, greenish liquid tinged
slightly with red.
The woman's eyes flickered open at their approach. "Linna?"
she whispered, grimacing in sudden pain. "What happened?" she hissed,
more softly this time.
One of the women flinched at her voice, then turned to regard
the Doctor with an uneasy stare. "Can you do anything?"
The Doctor frowned. "Difficult to say. I'm a doctor of science,
not medicine. She'll recover, given enough time, though."
The woman on the bed focused on the Doctor with an effort, gazing
at him through slitted eyes. "Who is this?" she whispered.
"I'm the Doctor," said he, "and this is Ace. We're here sort of
by accident, although it's rather a cozy nook on the whole. Yes, it must
do very well against that smog outside, I think." He pursed his lips into
a crooked, childish smile, gently extending his hand. "My compliments to
the hostess."
The woman regarded him curiously, as her eyelids slowly began to
droop. "A pleasure."
Seconds later, she was asleep again.
One of the women coughed softly, beckoning him aside. "We kept
the severed arm packed in ice. Is there any chance--"
"No," the Doctor finished for her. "Not unless you can regenerate
what was burned away, and even then she won't have any more than a limp,
lifeless husk. I'm sorry, but Earth's medical science simply isn't up to
it."
"Earth's medical science?" She said in a voice darkened by
smoldering anger. You're *not* from Earth!?"
"I'm not," the Doctor admitted. "Ace is, well, a bit ahead of her
time."
Linna stared at the Doctor mutely. She had been expecting some
secret, some dark past, but not this. His sudden appearance from the
ruins of Old Town, quickly followed by his capture and release by the
forces of Genom now took on a new and more frightening meaning.
Worse, she knew he was telling the truth. He was too casual and
too flippant about it, for it to be a lie.
"What are we gonna do?" whispered Nene over the suit's comlink.
"They've seen the Garage now, so--"
"Quiet," hissed Linna. Any unknown was a security risk, and an
alien even more so. But both of them had been chased by advanced boomers
sent from Genom, and Ace had even destroyed two of them.
Chemical explosives had fallen into disuse during the first decade
of the century, with the rapid development of hand-held neutronics. The
devices could easily kill anything within a confined area, leaving the
surrounding structures intact. Such was the value of life these days.
Perhaps, in a sense, it was fortunate that Ace was a legacy from an
earlier time. Linna didn't doubt that it had made a difference.
Nonetheless, she'd quickly learned from their collective
experience, both Nene's as a seasoned if unbloodied AD police officer, and
Sylia's as their contact with the quasi-legal world whence came most of
their jobs, that nearly everyone had an agenda. These two were likely no
different. Respect, they had earned, but honest trust was a much more
precious commodity.
She wasn't Sylia, however. She knew she couldn't take Sylia's
place, and be the leader she was. Sylia would have known what to do, but
she had to stumble along as best she could. But until Sylia could maintain
more than a few minutes of barely lucid consciousness, she was the leader
of the Knight Sabers.
The Doctor and Ace had seen the Garage, that was true. No matter
that their flimsy luck had held until now, Linna couldn't let them wander
through Megatokyo freely, where they might be killed or captured by Genom.
But, the Knight Sabers couldn't be at the Garage to watch over them for
very long, either. They had their normal lives to consider. Even Tom
couldn't spare that kind of time from his business.
Sylia would present even more of a problem. An excuse would have
to be found for her absence, another when she was well enough to return to
managing the Silky Doll, and yet another for her missing arm.
Linna fought down her indecision, and said, "Doctor, is there a
place where you can stay out of Genom's reach for a while?"
The Doctor frowned again, taking off his hat and fingering it with
something approaching nervousness. "Actually, Genom is the reason we're
here. Something or someone on this planet found a way to disturb the
Space-Time continuum, and I suspect--"
"The WHAT??" Linna said.
"Our time machine--our TARDIS--crashed on the far side of the
Fault. It'll take time to repair, and meanwhile I'm sure we can make a few
discreet inquiries in the right places."
"I see," Linna said flatly, not seeing at all. Either the alien
was brave beyond reason, or had no concept of the danger he was in. Linna
suspected the latter. "Doctor, you're only being difficult."
"I'm not being difficult," he retorted. "What would happen if
Genom were to perfect time travel? What chance of defending against its
might would you have? None at all. We have no choice."
Linna swallowed, hard. Genom was a bulldozer, destroying
everything in its path to get what it wanted. It had murdered Sho's mother
to claim a piece of property -- Priss' little friend had had no one left,
and the city orphanage had taken him away almost immediately. It had
destroyed Vision's life by callously killing her younger sister, something
Linna had witnessed herself. They had barely stopped Vision from a
revenge-maddened rampage.
What would they do with time travel? thought Linna.
No. What wouldn't they do. That was the question, and the
frightening answer.
The Doctor regarded the Knight Sabers each in turn. "We can't
risk doing nothing," he murmured. Pointing at Sylia, he said, "She might
not have a month to recover. If we don't stop Genom now, we might not have
any time at all."
* * *
The next few weeks had seen little obvious change in the lives of
the Knight Sabers, and even Genom had been strangely benevolent. Their
biggest difficulty had been moving the TARDIS to Raven's Garage
discreetly, without arising undue suspicion. A sign, swinging slightly in
the breeze next to the closed and shuttered Silky Doll, claimed that the
manager was away dealing with an urgent family matter. The Hot Legs had
been quickly repaired through the graces of an anonymous gift of several
hundred thousand yen, and Priss' concert had gone on only a week late, a
smashing success.
Sylia's condition had stabilized and begun to improve. Standing
for any length of time still made her dizzy, nearly enough to pass out,
but her deathly white pallor had slowly receded into a darker, more
burnished bronze. A few minutes of consciousness and speech, once
draining her to exhaustion, had stretched into several hours of lively
conversation and humour.
Meanwhile, Sylia's younger brother, Mackie, had toiled furiously
on Sylia's hardsuit. Genom had stolen her arm from her, but that left
space for a larger hand-laser, and a deadly, explosive flechette gun. The
latter, Sylia had sternly insisted upon.
The TARDIS itself was functional again. Thanks to an engineering
miracle in the form of a microminiature graviton flow enhancer, provided
by Genom's none-the-wiser research division piece by piece, the damage
caused by the continuum's rupture was as if it had never been. The Doctor,
content until now to remain in the TARDIS rather than inconvenience the
Knight Sabers, was restless for action.
As the sun sank through the last of the murky mists and vapor
hanging over Megatokyo to glower redly, already halfway below the horizon,
three dark figures crept silently along a darkened back street. Only the
slight glint of reddish light, reflecting dully off of the metal forms,
gave any warning as to their presence.
"Nene," Linna murmured over the suit's comlink, "check the
displacement scanner again." Moments later, the figure furthest from her
pointed at a second story window in the large building they were
approaching. "It's in there, in Genom's research lab, just like the
Doctor said."
A minor tweak, and a few anachronistic bits of electronics added
to Nene's hardsuit's standard set of detection equipment, courtesy of the
Doctor, had given them a reliable indicator as to the source of the
temporal disturbance. Worse yet, the energy reading, which had remained
fairly low for the past several days, had risen tremendously within the
last hour. The battle was joined now, the Doctor had warned, or not at
all. They could only agree, however unprepared they were.
There was a tiny ledge below the second story window, no more than
an inch and a half wide. Linna gazed at it for a long moment, and said,
"I can make it. Stand back."
She quickly walked over to stand next to the building, not quite
under the window. Gathering herself, she jumped, firing her suit's
boosters for a fraction of a second to boost her skyward. Two slight
clicks sounded in the still night air, as her heels landed on the ledge
next to the window. Linna quickly steadied herself, balancing carefully.
She breathed a quiet sigh of relief, that her balance practice at the
aerobics class she taught had paid off.
Stepping gingerly along the ledge, she inched closer to the
window. Testing it, she found it securely locked. Two quick bursts from
her hand laser took care of the problem, and she quietly slid open the
window, gesturing to the Knight Sabers waiting below to follow.
Moments later, they were gathered at the end of a long, darkened
corridor. Nene pointed again. "Down here, turn right, and it's at the
end of the hall," she whispered over the comlink.
They walked down the hallway, their footsteps muffled by the plush
red carpet covering the floor. Priss was the first to reach the
intersection of the corridors, and turned to walk almost directly into the
arms of a waiting boomer.
There were six of them altogether in the corridor, none with human
skin. Almost at once, their eyes flickered and glowed a deeper, more
deadly red.
The first spoke. "Welcome, Knight Sabers. My master sends his
greetings, and a message: Good bye, Sylia. Even you cannot defeat me
now."
Somewhere outside, as the sun finally sunk past the horizon and
the night deepened, they heard a car speeding away, and a deep, echoing
laughter.
Linna stiffened in shock. They had known. Someone at Genom was
playing them for fools, and they had taken the bait. She cursed herself
inwardly for not thinking her plan through carefully enough.
The boomers in the corridor gathered together and began to circle
them leisurely, slowly tightening the snare. The closest boomer lifted
its head slightly, and its mouth began to glow.
Priss shoved a knucklebomb into its chin, sending it flying back
to knock over two other boomers. Then she turned and ran, and the other
Sabers quickly followed.
"Shit, we need some cover fast!" Priss shouted over the comlink,
provoking a squeal of feedback. "Nene, where!?"
Nene glanced at the scanner display on her visor and ran past the
first two doors, plowing into the one beyond it and shattering the wooden
barrier. "This way!" She said breathlessly. "Up to the next floor!"
A laser bolt exploded next to Linna as she dived through the
doorway, and the three of them dashed up the stairs, the boomers not far
behind. They emerged into a maze of office cubicles, drab gray and brown
plastiform walls scattered this way and that throughout the huge chamber.
"Scatter!" Linna said, running into a narrow opening in the
labyrinth. Priss headed for a string of staggered cubicles, and Nene
followed the outer wall of the room, ducking behind the cubicles lined up
next to it.
Moments later, a plethora of heavy footsteps on the metal stairway
signaled the arrival of the boomers.
The room fell deathly silent, as the boomers began their search.
All Priss could hear was her own pounding heartbeat, and her ragged
breathing, deafeningly loud in her ears. She crouched low behind a prefab
metal desk, watching the opening at the far end of the cubicle, waiting
with railgun at the ready.
It was several minutes before a shadow passed in front of the
opening, but the boomer quickly passed on, apparently without glancing
inside.
Nene crept along a dim corridor which wound back and forth, first
hard against the outer wall, then away from it. She had no idea of what
she was looking for. A fusebox, a panel of light switches, anything that
might give them a tactical advantage. But so far, nothing.
As she reached the far corner of the chamber, she heard a muffled
gulp and a snapping sound from several feet away. Instantly, she froze.
Luckily, a slight scuffing sound followed, farther away. The boomer must
have found an innocent employee, who was working late, she thought grimly
to herself. At least, she hoped that was the case.
Suddenly, the plastiform wall next to her exploded inward and one
of the hulking boomers reached for her, leering its metallic leer. She
screamed, and jumped aside as a clawed hand raked the air where she had
been standing an instant before.
A similar, more distant explosion registered dully on her panicked
consciousness. Elsewhere, the boomers were attacking the other Knight
Sabers, she knew.
She ran out of the cubicle, ducking as another boomer made a grab
for her. She dashed down a short length of corridor and rounded a corner
just as a searing beam of red ripped a jagged hole in the corridor wall
behind her.
How had the boomers found them all so quickly?
The two boomers had jumped through the cubicle walls nearly
simultaneously, but Priss had been ready. The first had been quickly
decapitated by a hail of railgun spikes, but the other was ponderously but
rapidly closing the distance between them as she dived around each
staggered cubicle.
She stumbled to one side as an office chair crashed to the floor
at her feet. The boomer was trying to slow her down. A few steps closer
and it would have a clear shot at her with its deadly mouth cannon. Priss
ran for a nearby cubicle wall and jumped up, slowly dragging herself over
the top. And not a moment too soon, for immeditately after she was over,
a sizable chunk of the plastiform wall vanished in a cloud of acrid fumes
and smoke, vaporized by the boomer's laser.
She collapsed into a heap on the floor, trembling with exhaustion.
"Move!" she shouted at herself silently, as the ponderous footsteps of the
boomer grew closer. Someone was speaking, but she only half-heard the
words through the echoes of the explosion. "MOVE!!"
Linna had been caught by surprise, when one of the boomers had
crashed through the wall behind her. The boomer swung heavily at her,
knocking her to the floor. Smiling an evil smile, its mouth cannon began
to glow red.
Linna kicked desperately against the boomer's legs, sending it
into a sprawling heap. Climbing to her knees, she scurried for the next
bend in the corridor, but not before the boomer managed to get off a
parting shot. It tore off her motoslave's boosters, grazing her shoulder,
and suddenly a searing agony tore through her as the suit bubbled and ran
liquid where the beam had touched it. She screamed.
The boomer was slowly getting to its feet. She crawled blindly
for the corner, unable to see through the haze of pain. "Nene," she
whispered into the comlink. "Nene, do something. Help me..."
Nene was running down a long length of corridor, her own boomer
not far behind her. The next intersection was only moments away. But
suddenly, another boomer stepped into view from the other corridor and
readied its cannon. She dived to the floor as two searing beams of heat
tore through the air directly over her head, one from the boomer in front,
one from the one behind. Within moments, all that remained of the two
boomers were two smoking masses of metal and plastic, with legs.
"Now, _that_ was cheesy," Nene muttered to herself in grim
amusement.
Her comlink crackled. "Nene, do something," whispered Linna's
voice. "Help me..."
"I'm coming!" She yelled, and promptly dashed around the corner
straight into a *third* boomer.
The boomer was as surprised as she, but she was quicker. Without
thinking, she shoved her fist into its maw and activated her signal
scrambler. The boomer convulsed rapidly as its neurocircuitry flooded
with chaotic signals, dragging her back against the wall and hammering at
her as its arms flopped around at random. Finally, its eyes went dark,
and it slumped against the wall, unmoving. She had killed it.
She paused to draw a shuddering breath, flipping back her visor to
dab at the sweat running down her forehead. And then she noticed a tiny
silver spigot protruding from the ceiling several meters away.
"The sprinkler system!" she thought, elated. "THAT'S IT!!"
Quickly now, she hurried down the next corridor and into the cubicle
directly below the spigot. There was a smallish desk and chair, and an
ancient pad of paper filled with scribbled notes sitting next to a small
PC. She adjusted her arm laser's strength and fired at the pad, then at
the PC. Instantly, smoke and flames burst forth from both. She ran to the
next cubicle and repeated. Seconds later, the angry blare of the fire
alarm greeted her ears, and the spigots above began spreading forth their
salvation.
The boomers had a rudimentary form of infrared vision, she'd
realized. They hadn't been able to tell the difference between the heat
of their suits and the unfortunate employee, but they could still track
down and eliminate whatever sources of heat they could find. Hopefully,
the water would help them to blend in with their surroundings, and give
them the edge they needed to win the day.
* * *
Sylia awoke to the sound of soft ticking. Glancing to one side of
the bed, she saw a small, tower pendulum clock sitting on the bedstand,
with a note beside it. "Time is but a fleeting thing. -- The Doctor"
She smiled, finding reassurance in the familiarity of the practiced
expression. It wouldn't take long for everything to return to normal, and
all of this would be a distant memory.
A knock echoed slightly from the metal door. "Come in," she said.
"I'm awake."
The Doctor peeked in, smiled, pushed his hat up, and produced a
handful of violets. "I know." He strolled into the room and dropped the
flowers into a tiny vase already sitting on the bedstand, half full of
water. "Do you have a moment to chat?" he murmured disarmingly.
She nodded, and beckoned him to a chair next to the bed. "So,"
she began, smiling faintly. "What's the weather like outside?"
"Toxic, as usual," he returned. "You should be well enough to deal
with it in another week, I think."
The smile faded from his face, replaced with a faraway look. "What
will you do, after this is all over?" he murmured softly.
"Go on fighting Genom, no doubt," she answered pragmatically.
"There's a delicate balance to maintain."
"Really?" He quirked an eyebrow at her. "Tell me about this
balance."
She sighed. "There's not much to tell. Genom puts on its front
for the rest of the world to see. It's what they don't see that I'm sworn
to defend against. The corruption festering there is a double-edged
sword, cutting a path of progress forward, but slicing innocent lives
asunder as it moves." She held up her stump of an arm. "Genom must be
watched, so that the good and the evil are balanced."
"But that's not what you said," he replied. "You said you'd go on
fighting Genom."
"To keep that balance, of course!" She snapped, giving him a cold
glare.
She fought down her anger with a visible effort. "I'm sorry, I--"
"I know," he said. "Maybe if you say it often enough, you'll
eventually believe it. But that isn't why you're fighting them, is it?"
She stared at him for a moment. "What do you mean?"
He shook his head sadly. "Sylia, Sylia. When did it become
personal?"
She quickly looked away, steeling herself against the churning
emotions suddenly surfacing under his careful probing. "I don't know," she
whispered, refusing to yield the bitter truth.
"It wasn't just your arm, was it?" he pressed. "Tell me."
The clock ticked away the passing seconds, then minutes, while she
searched for an answer that would satisfy him. "Maybe I just can't trust
them," she finally replied.
The Doctor shook his head again, taking Sylia's hand. "It can't
be that simple. What did Genom do to you that made you so angry inside?
What did they take away from you that drives you to fight against them so?"
She suddenly felt wetness rolling down her cheeks, and she couldn't
stop it. Damn him, she thought angrily. Stop trying to help me, just
leave me be. Leave me to my revenge, and stay the hell out of my way.
But, deep in her soul, she knew that the Doctor could not help
himself, either. How sad.
Without warning, a rumbling explosion shook the room, sending the
vase to the floor to shatter into pieces. The Doctor quickly stood,
bracing himself against the chair as the aftershocks died away. He said,
"That wasn't very far away."
"He's here," Sylia said flatly, her gaze cooling to its normal
icy formality. "*HE* is here." With a flick of her head, she flung the
tears away. SLAM. Her wall was back in place, back where it belonged.
"Help me up, we don't have much time."
* * *
Priss glanced upward in surprise as the water began to rain down
upon her. "What the hell?" she wondered as she clambered slowly to her
feet. Then the boomer's footsteps stopped, and she understood.
She took off in a shaky jog down the new corridor. "Nene," she
said into the comlink, "where are you?"
"Take the second left, and watch out for the boomer behind you,"
came the hurried reply.
Priss followed the corridor back and forth past several more
cubicles before she came to the second intersection, and caught up with
Nene a minute later. Glancing back, she saw that the boomer that had been
chasing her before was nowhere in sight.
A boomer lay at Nene's feet, its hands outstretched, its back and
neck arched at an impossible angle. Next to it lay Linna's prone form.
She was unconscious, which was fortunate. Her right shoulder was in sorry
shape. The suit had nearly melted through, leaving a sliver of blackened,
blistered skin exposed.
Linna hadn't seen how close she had come to dying -- the boomer had
been that close.
"She'll be okay," Nene murmured quietly over the comlink. "But
the boomer really made a mess of her shoulder."
Priss nodded grimly.
"How many did you get?" Nene asked.
"One," muttered Priss.
"Then there's one left. Let's get Linna downstairs first, and then
come back for it."
"Okay," Priss replied, frowning at the boomer. She glanced at Nene
curiously. "What did you do?"
Nene grinned impishly. "I gave it a headache."
The boomer was waiting for them at the doorway. It turned, smiled
a deadly smile, and shot forth its deadly beam into the cubicle next to
them. Though it had given off no small amount of steam penetrating through
the shower still descending from above, the beam still managed to gouge a
deep hole into the plastiform. Priss and Nene ducked back into the
corridor.
"Damn!" Priss growled, as the boomer's footsteps grew nearer. She
reached out again and fired off a volley of railgun spikes at the boomer.
Most went wide, but several sailed true to bury themselves deeply into its
chest and head.
The boomer stopped instantly, a shower of sparks erupting from all
over its body, the water coursing down its hulking form glowing from the
electrical discharge. Then a series of explosions ripped through its
frame, knocking it from its feet and finally blowing it apart completely.
Priss simply gaped.
Nene let out a sigh of relief and smiled again. "Come on Priss, we
have a disaster to prevent."
But the battle had only begun. No sooner had the boomer's remains
settled, still smoldering, to the floor, when Nene's comlink crackled
hesitantly. "Linna! Linna, what's your status?"
Sylia's voice was nervous and strained. Something must have gone
wrong, Nene thought grimly. She answered, "Sylia, Linna's unconscious.
We've taken care of the boomers guarding the lab, and we're ready to
destroy it before any more get here."
"Nene, have everyone return immediately. Forget about the lab.
The Garage is being attacked, and we'll need you here." Sylia's voice had
gone completely flat, taut with anxiety.
"Uh, alright, we're coming," she stuttered in return.
The comlink went dead, leaving Nene more alone than she had ever
been in her life.
Sylia slumped away from the communications panel, exhausted
already. The Doctor and Ace stood nearby, ready to offer a hand if it
became necessary.
"Sylia," the Doctor murmured, "the Garage can't be as important as
a human life. Now, before it's too late...let's get away from here."
She looked away, refusing to meet his innocent, yet penetrating
gaze. "Perhaps, but I'm not leaving the hardsuit." Without turning, she
beckoned. "Come. There's no point in not trusting you now."
"Fine for you to say, " Ace retorted, but followed.
They meandered down a winding corridor, past a door labeled
"Testing Area" and into the underground garage where the van was parked.
The explosions had gone ominously silent.
Mackie had been tinkering with a heavily modified motorbike,
unnerved by the commotion outside but uncertain about what to do, when they
entered. Dropping his tools, he quickly rushed to Sylia's side. "Sylia,
are you okay? I didn't think--"
"I'm fine," she managed over his persistence. "Is the van ready?"
He nodded quickly.
"I see what you mean about not trusting us," Ace said flatly.
"This isn't the way we came in, is it?"
Sylia ignored her and walked over to a blank section of wall,
pressing a set of invisible studs in quick succession. A portion of the
wall slid aside to reveal three empty racks, and one hardsuit. She began
tugging at it, grimly refusing to succumb to lassitude.
The Doctor moved to help her. "Are you sure you're ready?"
She shrugged him off, shaking her head wearily. "I don't have a
choice." She glanced at the Doctor and Ace suspiciously, then threw a
slightly harder look at Mackie, her hentai younger brother. "If you
wouldn't mind turning around?"
Ace glowered back, but complied, as did the Doctor and Mackie. A
lengthy minute later, they heard a sharp click, and looked again to see
Sylia donning her helmet.
The metallic creature was whole once again, after a fashion.
Sylia waved her new "arm" back and forth, testing its balance.
"Excellent," she murmured silently to herself. It was only slightly
heavier than her real arm, and the satisfying low hum of power from the
flechette loading mechanism which now filled the void below her left
shoulder sent a cool tingle of reassurance down her spine. With a few
careful touches of her stump, the now-fingerless hand smoothly irised open
and shut. Largo, she thought coldly, you haven't beaten us yet.
Mackie was loading his bike into the van. Ace jumped into the
driver's seat, and the Doctor took the passenger's seat. Sylia followed
Mackie into the rear as Ace gunned the engine to life.
Over the speaker in the back, Mackie said, "Press the green button
on the dash next to the big lever. That'll raise the platform and get us
out of here."
"Got it," Ace barked back.
The platform rumbled upward, and a large section of the ceiling
slid back to admit the rising van. Dr. Raven was nowhere in sight.
Instead, there were three figures: a diminutive man dressed in an evening
suit, and two larger bodyguards in steel blue and grey. The man's face was
unmistakable.
Largo, and his retinue. Largo, back from the dead, just as she
had known it would be.
The two upgraded boomers stood to either side of him, glaring down
at them menacingly. The deceptively small cyborg blinked once, and smiled.
"So it ends," he said.
Ace slammed her foot on the accelerator, and the van shot forward
past the boomers and into the street. Immediately, they heard the
answering rumble of the boomers' jetpacks, and Largo's calmly echoing
laughter. "Run," he said, "for all the good it will do you. You belong to
me now, Sylia."
Ace ignored him and concentrated on keeping the powerful vehicle on
the road in the heavy traffic. It raced down the main avenue at a
respectable 70 kilometer-an-hour clip, prompting several cars ahead of them
to swerve out of the way, their horns screeching in protest. "Which way?"
she shouted into the wind, hoping that Mackie could hear her from the rear
compartment.
"Head for the highway entrance!" he shouted back. "Next left!"
A truck was backing out of a parking lot in front of her, and she
hit the brakes, swerving onto the sidewalk and squeaking past it with
inches to spare. She looked in the mirror, and saw that the boomers were
still coming. They had simply boosted over it.
The highway onramp loomed ahead. Moments later, they were on the
highway itself. And the boomers were still following.
"The research center!" Mackie shouted again. "We'll meet up with
the rest of the Knight Sabers!"
* * *
There wasn't much that could be done for Linna. Her shoulder was
badly charred, and moving her would only aggravate the wound, possibly
breaking open the skin and making it bleed heavily. It was far too risky
to chance using the motoslaves. The Skycarrier was at a private hangar
across town, a fair distance beyond even Raven's Garage, so there was no
way to retrieve it now. Nevertheless, they had to bring her back, somehow.
It was very slow going. Linna's motoslave was damaged beyond the
ability to fly, and it couldn't be removed without further injuring her.
It was too cumbersome to carry her, and so Nene removed her own motoslave,
transforming it back into the motorbike, and carefully draped Linna's body
over it. They would return together, though not at all quickly.
Priss refused to leave them, regardless of the fight underway.
"You think if they find you alone you won't end up six feet under? You
think you're indestructible or something?" she said. "Like hell you are!"
Then she refused to say anything further on the matter.
At some point however, they would be forced to split up, or leave
Linna behind. The highway was the quickest and safest route back to Tinsel
City, and they couldn't well walk the distance back without being flattened
by the heavy evening traffic.
She shuddered. It was also the only route back, unless one was
crazy enough to jump headlong into the Fault itself.
Nene glanced down at Linna's prone form. She was sleeping, as far
as Nene could tell, although her badly burned shoulder would make her rest
anything but pleasant. At least she was blissfully ignorant of the coming
danger.
A reddish glow on the horizon, quickly followed by the sound of
laser fire, attracted her attention. Seconds later, the glow flared again,
nearer this time.
They were coming.
Sylia fired her flechette cannon again, and twisted away as the
boomers returned fire. Boosting higher into the air on her motoslave, she
somersaulted over the boomers and shot several more flechettes at the
closer one. Almost instantly, it swerved to one side and the flechettes
exploded on the highway's surface, leaving shallow craters.
They were simply too fast for her. She could only distract them
away from the van until they reached the research center.
As if answering her somber thoughts, the van screeched down an off
ramp, burying itself in the city traffic below. The boomers quickly moved
to follow, but she fired a precise series of shots at the highway in front
of them, slowing them again momentarily. Gathering herself, she leaped
over the guard rail into the night, the boomers close behind.
Sylia landed on a cross street below, prompting an oncoming car to
swerve sharply to one side. Before the boomers landed, she was in the air
again, twisting sideways to avoid a rapid volley of laser fire. She ducked
behind a cement pillar supporting the highway, shuddering with exhaustion,
pausing for a moment to try to catch her breath.
Suddenly, the pillar shook with the force of a heavy blow, buckling
inward, towards her. She fired her motoslave's rockets, shooting to safety
moments before a rain of cement and debris crashed down from above. A
section of the highway crumbled inward, sending a cloud of chalk and dust
billowing upwards, enveloping her.
And then she could see nothing, and hear nothing, save for the
quiet drone of traffic far away, and the melancholy cry of sirens fading
into the lonely night. She clambered shakily to her feet, peering through
the haze in a vain attempt to determine what had become of the boomers.
Forty meters away, slightly to her left, a pair of red, glowing
eyes snapped open. A few meters behind, another pair appeared.
The boomers began to inch forward, apparently savouring their
victory. There was nowhere left to hide. Pushed beyond her endurance, she
could run no further.
Out of the inky blackness of the night shot a sudden glimmer of
light, striking one of the boomers across its midsection. It howled in
pain and hot anger, whirling to track the source of the steel spikes
embedded in its chest.
A metallic figure sprung out from behind a parked car, eating up
the ground between it and the stricken boomer in less than a second. Its
hand shot out, ripping deep into the boomer's torso. With a hoarse cry of
agony, its chest exploded into flames, and the figure staggered back.
A hint of metallic blue shimmered in the flickering glow of a
nearby street light. Priss.
The remaining boomer backhanded her, sending her flying. She
crashed heavily to the ground, the hardsuit squealing as it scraped against
the pavement. But as the boomer advanced on her, a second figure darted
from the shadows towards it. It turned.
Sylia took advantage of the distraction, and rammed home a hail of
exploding flechettes. Most of them struck its neck and head, tearing them
from its body with a harsh crackle of electricity.
The torso took another ponderous, unsteady step, then slowly
toppled to the ground, unmoving.
The second figure slowed to a halt, trembling slightly, and looked
up from the smoldering remains, flipping up its visor.
Nene smiled at her warmly. "We won, Sylia," she managed to gasp
between ragged breaths. "We won."
Sylia nodded somberly. "But at a terrible price," she murmured,
and looked back in the direction whence they had ran. "Where's Linna?"
As if in answer to her question, the street light flickered off,
and they turned in unison at the sound of a deep, echoing laugh. Slowly,
yet another figure emerged from the gloom.
The figure paused briefly, allowing the faint glow of the distant
city to play across its features.
Largo. Largo, carrying Linna's unconscious form.
He hefted Linna's body a bit higher over his shoulder. "The end
finally comes, Sylia," he said. "You are beaten. Surrender yourself, or
see this one go the way of all flesh."
Sylia froze, shaking inwardly with icy fear. Revenge fell by the
wayside, as a lump settled painfully into the pit of her stomach. Please,
she begged silently. Please let it not happen this way...to my...not to my
friends...
More than she had ever realized, she loved the other Knight Sabers.
She needed them. They were the only family she had left. They were the
only ones she could ever be close to.
"What do you want with me," she whispered, broken.
Largo smiled cruelly. "You need not know. Not yet. But I shall
spare this one's life, on one condition."
A squeal of tires attracted their attention, and they looked down
the street to see the van roll into view, and suddenly come to a halt.
Largo gestured. "Bring me the Time Lord's time capsule."
His words hung heavy in the cold night air. An impossible demand,
from a grotesquely evil being, against a total stranger. How could they
conceivably make good on it?
The Doctor opened the door and stepped out of the Knight Sabers'
van, frowning at Largo's back. "And what if the Time Lord doesn't agree,
Chairman?" he answered, provoking a round of gasps.
"Chairman??" Sylia wondered aloud. "But *how*?"
Largo answered, his face draining of expression for a moment.
"When the orbital laser hit me, I was disoriented. I fell from the
pinnacle of the Tokyo Genom Tower, and my body was shattered irreparably."
Then he smiled cruelly at Sylia, visibly savoring her pained
reaction. "But my mind lived on, and yearned for revenge. A new body was
constructed for me, similar to the last, yet different enough to give me
the necessary degree of anonymity I needed to ascend the ranks of Genom
once again."
He turned to face the Doctor once more. "Time Lord, you are no
match for me. Your one weakness, your irrational sense of compassion,
shall cost you dearly." His grip tightened around Linna's waist, and
there was an audible cracking sound. "You *will* give me your time
capsule, or this one will die, very, very slowly."
Ace tensed, and turned from Largo to the Doctor, who was standing
in front of the van, waiting. Waiting, and weighing the lives in the
balance.
The Doctor hesitated for a long moment...then silently nodded,
his shoulders slumping in defeat. Largo smiled, and began to laugh again.
* * *
The ride back to Raven's Garage was interminably long.
Sylia kept her thoughts to herself, but she had no end of
unanswered questions. "I still don't trust the Doctor," she thought with
a sigh, "but he's giving up a lot to help us. Why? He has to have a
motive. Everyone has a motive. Everyone..."
She shook her head to clear it of the suddenly stirring memories.
Memories of her father's death, and her brutal, bloody indoctrination into
the real world. Genom had been the harbringer of much good, she thought,
but also of great evil. Her own motives, she knew, were not simply an
earnest desire for balance. They were not simply the continual balancing
of good and evil, the eternal battle of light and darkness. She knew she
could not possibly destroy Genom, and yet she had determined, long ago,
that somehow they had to be made to pay for all of their sins.
She took some comfort in the fact that her father hadn't put his
years into Genom for nothing. And even, in a perverse sort of way, she had
Genom to thank for her almost familial ties with the other Sabers.
But it was not enough. Genom was too corrupt -- still, what could
they do? How could they lancet the festering evil without motally wounding
the city in which it dwelt?
And now, how would they? For the Knight Sabers had finally been
discovered.
Largo had refused to ride in the van. He had said he would meet
them back at Raven's Garage, with Linna. Ace didn't have much trouble
believing it, from what she knew of boomers. And Largo wasn't human, she
was sure. But the Doctor had to be planning something. Why risk this
maniacal creature rampaging through time on behalf of one life? Even on
behalf of all of them, though she wasn't so sure she would have the
courage to die for a lofty ideal.
No, the Doctor was more cunning than perhaps Largo gave him credit
for, she concluded.
Ace stared morosely at the road ahead, barely conscious of her
driving. The van hit a bump in the road, bringing forth a chorus of soft
moans. The same mournful fear gripped them all, for they all knew what
awaited them at the garage, and none were ready to face it. These
vigilantes must have been active for some time, to have developed such
feelings for each other, she thought. And now, their secret was as much as
revealed.
It just wasn't fair, she cried inwardly.
The van rolled to a stop at a busy intersection. Ace gave a
halfhearted, ironic bark of a laugh when she realized where she was. The
AD Police building loomed overhead, though there was no sign of the damage
the one boomer had caused only a few weeks ago.
The light changed, and she sped away.
The Doctor was at a unique disadvantage this time, facing an
adversary who not only understood the concept of time travel, but who was
powerful enough to crush anyone who stood in his way, to get it. Stopping
him would take a crazy scheme that hadn't a prayer of working, not a little
luck, and a miracle or three.
"Ace," he whispered, his mind finally made up. She grunted.
"When we get back, give me your tape deck from the TARDIS. We'll
need it."
She grinned impishly. "I knew you had a--" She paled, her
expression changing to one of horror. "You aren't going to give him the
TARDIS!?"
Not very long ago, they had foiled a plot by a race of pepperpot-
shaped cyborgs to steal a prototype Time Lord star manipulator, hidden in
Earth's past. Her 1990's vintage boom box had been atomized. The Doctor
had built her another, including such handy gadgets as a spacetime scanner,
among other things. It was quite capable of tracking the movements of the
TARDIS through the space-time continuum. Ace had realized that he meant to
use it to do just that.
The Doctor continued without answering. "Hide in the TARDIS until
he lands," he said, and handed her a small, silver disc. "Keep that handy.
We won't be able to find you without it."
Ace nodded mutely, shocked into silence.
The Doctor turned to gaze at the darkening city skyline, heaving a
barely audible sigh, and contemplated the enormity of what he was about to
do. Even a noble Time Lord like himself was not immune to fear.
* * *
Only minutes later, Ace brought the van to a screeching halt in
front of Raven's Garage, and sighed at the extensive damage. Dr. Raven had
apparently put up quite a fight before he scuttled, forced to leave the
Sabers to deal with Largo alone. Laser blasts had blackened and even
melted the superstructure in places, but Ace could see scattered debris
from explosions in the parking lot around it as well. But, there was no
sign of Largo now.
She idled the engine and let the van crawl forward on the idle,
towards the shattered doors. In the rear of the van, Mackie finally spoke
up. "What a mess. Damn, it'll cost us a fortune to rebuild." There was
apparently a viewscreen in the back to see outside.
"Rebuild?" Ace heard Sylia say. "Rebuild??" She nearly
screeched. "No, not after this. We're finished."
For a few seconds, the intercom was silent again. "Shit," muttered
Ace under her breath. "I think she lost it..."
"B-but Sylia," said Nene, the shock evident in her voice, "we can
move to another--"
"No," she interrupted. "No. Genom's found us, and we're not safe
any more. We just can't go on. I..." Sylia hesitated. "I can't go on,"
she croaked.
Had Sylia finally snapped? Ace wondered. The pressure of her
profession, the loss of her arm, their discovery by Largo...it must have
finally broken her, Ace thought remorsefully.
"It's not over yet," said the Doctor over the intercom, stifling
Ace's melancholy speculations. "But it's going to get worse. Much worse.
You all had better be prepared for it."
"Well spoken, Doctor," said a deep voice in the thick of the
gloom. Slowly, the flickering headlights picked out a gleaming metal form
walking toward them.
They all stepped out of the van together, as Largo continued.
"How touching, to see the ice lady finally crack," he said emotionlessly.
Sylia glared wordlessly at him.
"Where's Linna?" growled Priss. "You're not getting anything
until we see her."
Largo laughed once in derision, a hideous sound. "Such loyalty."
He took a few, measured steps, and prodded at a still form on the ground
with his foot.
Linna moaned softly.
"Time Lord," he said flatly, meaning to finish the matter.
The Doctor shook his head. "Before we do anything, what do you
hope to accomplish with my TARDIS?"
Largo harrumphed, and then smiled slowly. "It's quite simple.
You--all of you--have a choice. The Knight Sabers have outlived their
usefulness, and I intend to be rid of you forever. Whether you live or
die is up to you."
"How do you mean?" said Nene. "What are you going to do to us??"
"It is easily within my power to kill you where you stand," he
said.
"Like hell!" roared Priss, and raised her arm towards Largo, but a
flick of his hand sent her flying backwards in an explosion of superheated
air. "SILENCE!"
Largo sneered. "Fools. Realize when you are beaten. I mean to
erase you from history, forever. Oh, you will live out your pathetic
lives, but the Knight Sabers shall be no more."
"That's...that's monstrous," Sylia whispered, without looking up.
"Life or death, and you shall choose, Sylia Stingray," he said.
Something inside Sylia crumbled, as a single, overriding thought
suddenly rose up within her. "He cannot take them away from me. The
Sabers are all I have left!" Without warning, she screamed, "NO!" And
in a blur of motion, she aimed and fired a hail of deadly flechettes at the
twisted creation named Largo.
With a single wave of his arm, Largo swept the projectiles away,
and they exploded harmlessly in the air. "How pitiful."
Unsurprised at his invulerability, she collapsed, sobbing audibly.
"Kill us," she whispered. "Let it end, then..."
"What!?" shouted Priss and Nene in unison. "Now, wait a minute--"
Largo growled in hot anger, raising his arm menacingly. "Fools!
Then die!"
"Wait!" said the Doctor, before Largo could act.
"I'll give you what you want," he said after another moment of
tense silence. "Follow me," he murmured dejectedly.
Not a word was uttered as the Doctor led all but a stricken Sylia
down a short corridor and into a lab filled with silent, inactive
equipment. The familiar blue shape of the TARDIS rested in a far corner.
Crossing the room, he produced a delicate key, and opened the
door. Motioning the others to follow, he entered the chamber beyond.
The group huddled together inside the cavernous, gothic chamber--
the control room of the TARDIS--awed by the sight. All but Largo, of
course. Meanwhile, Ace quietly slipped into an adjoining corridor and
hurried into the dimensionless depths of the machine.
The Doctor headed for the console in the midst of the room, and
began checking the controls. "The TARDIS itself is semi-sentient, Largo,
I must warn you. It'll take a while for it to grow accustomed to another
operator. Oh, and I've had minor difficulties with the directional
guidance, so you might not always end up where or when you'd expect."
"Irrelevant," Largo said. "I have but a single use for the
machine. Perhaps you think me arrogant, but I am not power mad. One world
shall be enough."
"Gee, that's reassuring," Mackie muttered in disgust.
The Doctor looked up. "It's ready. The guidance controls are
easy enough to understand, I'm sure. If you'll pardon me, I'll gather a
few belongings before I leave." Largo nodded, waving him away, and began
to study the console hungrily.
The Doctor followed in Ace's footsteps, leaving the others with
Largo while he made his final farewell. Stopping at a closed, featureless
door much like many of the others in the present stretch of corridor, he
knocked softly.
Ace opened the door, and beckoned him quickly inside.
They sat. "I'm sorry, Doctor," Ace murmured.
"Oh, cheer up, Ace. It'll work out. Trust me, hmm?" He smiled
cheekily, provoking a bit of sorrowful laughter in return. "I know," she
said. "I believe in you."
He grinned at that. "It's nice to know someone does, but I
wouldn't mind a little less excitement. The Cybermen, for instance."
She glared at him in mock disgust, trying to hide a smile. "I
thought we'd discussed that already."
"So did I." He gave her a quick hug. "I'd better be going, then.
Off to save the universe again."
Ace rolled her eyes at his melodramatics.
The Doctor took the tape deck when she offered it. "Just bring it
back in one piece," she warned playfully.
He winked back. "And me too, hm?" he said with a cheery smile.
The Doctor rejoined the others, and they slowly filed out of the
TARDIS, leaving Largo to his destiny. A few, short moments later, a
wheezing, groaning sound filled the room, and the TARDIS shimmered and
vanished.
"Now," said the Doctor, "begins the fight for our existence."
Largo had robbed them of their future. They had only a faint hope
of winning it back again.
Even before the sounds of the TARDIS' passing had died away, the
Doctor turned and quickly marched from the room, beckoning Mackie, and a
suited Priss and Nene, to follow. Then, without warning, an ominous,
howling rumble shook the building.
"What the hell was that?" muttered Priss.
"It means we'd better hurry," replied the Doctor. "Unless you want
the end of the universe to catch up with you."
The four of them returned to the underground garage. Sylia was
bending gingerly over Linna, whispering softly. Linna was conscious, but
only just.
"Hurry," the Doctor said. "We don't have much time. Bring her,
Sylia, we can take care of her once we're there."
Sylia snorted derisively. "Where? And how?"
"Genom's research facility," he answered. "And I'll explain on the
way."
She refused to meet his gaze. "We've lost already. There's
nothing we can do."
Priss walked over, shoving Sylia aside, and picked Linna up. Linna
gritted her teeth against the pain, as the blackened metal scraped against
her scorched shoulder. "Dammit, Sylia," Priss growled, "Linna wouldn't
give up. I won't, not now. What the hell is the matter with you??"
Priss and the others headed for the van, leaving the Doctor alone
with Sylia.
"Sylia, we're not dead yet," he murmured, but she ignored him.
The ground rumbled again. "Hear that? Time itself is grinding to a halt
in this reality. Can't you feel it?"
Sylia could feel something, something dark and hungry beginning to
pull at her. She knew the Doctor was right, but she couldn't bring herself
to trust him. Broken, she couldn't trust herself. Her ordered universe
was literally tearing itself apart, and she no longer had the strength nor
the will to go on.
"It'll only get worse," the Doctor warned, "until it destroys this
reality. There's still a chance to stop Largo, and heal Linna. Aren't you
willing to try?"
She sighed heavily, but knew there was no arguing with his logic.
With nothing else to trust in, she would trust in hope itself.
Sylia stood, still without answering, and made the few careful,
measured steps between her and the van.
* * *
A cold wind tore at the shuttered shop, and the hanging sign
rattled against the window. The Silky Doll was dark and silent, and the
harried passerby paid it no heed.
Within the back room, the viewscreen flickered cautiously to life.
The picture glittered with static, though the voice which issued from it
remained undistorted. "This is Jessica Genjiro, reporting from the AD
Police tower." The woman in red beckoned at the building behind her,
slightly askew on its foundation. "Ten minutes ago, several top level
Genom executives were taken into custody, as the pending investigation
revealed a complex web of financial mismanagement and corruption at the
highest levels. The new boomer prototypes have been pulled from production
after the recent incidents of control malfunction, resulting in millions of
yen in damage to the city." Just then, the woman stumbled as another
tremor shook the earth. "The chairman of Genom is wanted for questioning
concerning these projects, which were apparently under his direct
authority."
She shifted her unfocused gaze slightly to the left, gazing at an
unseen audience with professional disdain. "The top story this afternoon
has hit MegaTokyo with a trillion yen punch, as the damage continues to
mount under wave after wave of tremors. The mysterious quakes are not
fault-related, and have no epicenter. They seem to be striking all parts
of the city equally, and in fact there have been reports of similar tremors
worldwide."
She coughed slightly, and tried to mask an expression of distaste.
"Several thousand Catholics have taken to the streets, proclaiming the end
of the world. Shinto and Buddhist shrines citywide are packed with the
faithful, and the streets are echoing with fervent prayer. Whatever the
cause, it's apparent that--"
Another tremor rocked the ground, and suddenly the AD Police tower
twisted crazily and began to topple. Huge chunks of concrete fell from
the leaning high rise, and then the picture vanished in a flurry of static.
Megatokyo was crumbling under the weight of time.
* * *
Linna was in agony. She clung to consciousness tenaciously,
unwilling to let what she knew might be her last moments slip away from
her. Even so, she felt every grit in the pavement, as the van rushed
towards Genom's laboratory and research facility.
The Doctor was muttering something about the mutability of the
dying timestream, but comprehension remained beyond her weakened grasp.
Nevertheless, she couldn't help but notice Sylia's shocked gasp, as she
turned to gaze tearfully at her.
"It can't possibly be that easy," she heard Sylia say.
"But it is," said the Doctor. "We can try once we reach the lab."
Linna gazed questioningly up at them, struggling to remain awake.
"Sleep, Linna," murmured the Doctor encouragingly. "Rest. You'll
feel better for it, I promise."
Something about his voice was strangely compelling, and she found
her eyelids growing heavy. "Sleep..." she heard him say once more, and she
drifted off into an unbroken slumber.
Another tremor rumbled through the city, but Linna was already
snoring softly. "I don't know whether to thank you or kill you," Sylia
whispered. "But, how can we possibly affect what must have already
happened years ago?"
"The same way Largo did, Sylia," the Doctor answered. "We need to
follow them back through time. That's why we absolutely must reach that
lab. The equipment Largo was working on there is invaluable."
"Them?" asked Sylia.
"Ace stayed in the TARDIS," he replied. "When we find her, we'll
find Largo."
She nodded, feeling a grudging respect for him. Putting Ace in
that kind of danger must weigh terribly on the Doctor's mind, she thought
bitterly. Without knowing when or how, she had forgotten that weight of
responsibility for the Sabers, shunting it off unconsciously to do what
needed to be done. It was the only way she could possibly cope with the
day to day business of being the leader of the Knight Sabers.
And a leader she must be, if there truly was still some chance. It
was time to push aside her tremulous emotions, against the Doctor and
against Largo, and become the pillar she once was. The Knight Sabers --
*her* Knight Sabers -- needed her now.
Suddenly, the van swerved as the ground wavered precariously ahead
of them. As they rolled past the disturbance, the viewscreen picked out a
slight rippling in the ground and air. The screen dimmed slightly, as the
area seemed to fade, leached of color and vitality.
"Geez," Priss grumbled, but held her peace.
It was Nene who finally spoke. "S-Sylia...um..." She was staring
at the back of the van, terrified by some inner horror.
Sylia beckoned her to continue.
"Uh...for a second, there was...er, I couldn't scan anything
outside. I mean, there was nothing, absolutely nothing!" Her voice
trembled with raw fear.
"It's getting worse," the Doctor said, then spoke into the
intercom to Mackie, who was driving. "Just be as careful as you can."
The van roared up the onramp of the highway, leaping onto the road
and ever closer to what lay ahead.
* * *
Twenty minutes and countless near accidents later, they pulled
into a side street near Genom's research facility. It wouldn't be
difficult getting past security this time -- they would be much too busy
dealing with containing the damage from the tremors.
Not that it would matter for much longer.
They emptied out of the van; Sylia, with Linna's sleeping form.
Priss blasted a hole in the side of the building, and they hurried for the
stairs.
Elsewhere, the silent alarm tripped by the explosion screamed
voicelessly, alerting only the already overloaded and virtually powerless
automatic defenses to the presence of the six intruders.
The lab itself was a shambles.
Parts of the ceiling had collapsed inward, damaging some of the
equipment scattered around the vaulted chamber. In one corner, there was a
small, enclosed capsule, big enough for three. Huge power conduits snaked
across the room into the capsule, burying themselves deep in the
electronics of the machine. Faintly flickering lights blinked on and off
inside, indicating a standby status.
"What a mess," Nene said in disgust. "We'll never fix it in time!"
"Nonsense," snapped the Doctor. "I can fix anything I want to!"
He marched across the room and into the chamber, reaching into his
pocket for his sonic screwdriver. "Good thing I remembered to bring this,"
he mumbled to himself.
Sylia and the others gathered by the door to wait. Did they have
minutes? Hours?
According to the Doctor, there was no way of telling. No one had
ever been caught in a dying timestream before, and lived to tell of it.
She settled down to gaze sadly at Linna's sleeping form. Her
shoulder, badly burned and scarred by the boomer's laser, would take weeks
to heal on its own. Could mere thought truly shape the course of events?
Sylia would soon know.
"Priss, Nene, Mackie," she said. "I know it sounds foolish, but
think about Linna's shoulder and concentrate."
She could hardly believe what the Doctor had told her. Outside the
flow of time, reality was entirely fictional, and entirely controlled by
the thoughts of sentients. As her timestream ground to a painful halt, it
would grow easier and easier to shape its events through the combined power
of their minds, working in unison.
Linna could be made whole, solely through the power of thought, he
had said.
It was a very slow process. Random eddies in the timestream were
focused and brought to bear on the fallen Saber's wound. In a matter of
minutes, months of healing renewed Linna's shoulder. The scars faded.
Blackened and cracked scabs fell away to reveal whitened flesh.
As they concentrated, the metal skin of her hardsuit began to flow
together, reknitting and reforming into a gleaming shell. Moments later,
the fourth Saber was whole once again.
"What about you, Sylia?" Priss asked.
Sylia slowly shook her head, and held up her arm of metal and
ceramic. "This prevents. If I am to choose one or the other, I will
remain as I am now."
"You've made up your mind?" murmured Nene.
"Yes," she said. "Yes. I have."
There were some losses -- though only a few -- that Sylia could
learn to bear. This was one.
Linna blinked.
"Linna?" said Sylia, gazing down at her with a rare, emotion-
filled expression. "How do you feel?"
Linna sat up, stretched, and took the proffered helmet from Mackie.
"Like I've been laying on a metal floor in a hardsuit. Next question?"
She cracked a weary smile. "Thanks. Whatever you did...um...thanks."
They stood, waiting. The lab was silent, save for the Doctor's
occasional muttering. "Blast...no dimensional stabilizer, what was he
thinking? Have to use the tower as a waveguide..." And on and on.
"Doctor?" Mackie ventured. "Another hour, maybe two," he replied without
looking up.
Outside, they could hear the masses screaming, even through the
foot thick, reinforced walls. Suddenly, the building structure suddenly
wrenched sideways, and more cracks appeared in the ceiling.
"Uh oh," Nene gulped. "I hope we have that long..."
The universe was disintegrating. The sun had exploded, then fallen
back in on itself almost instantly. A sudden wave of searing heat had
given way to freezing cold. Worldwide, a set of earthquakes rocked the
continents, setting up a massive chain of tsunami-size waves which rocketed
toward the coastlines.
Bits of reality continued to wink in and out. People caught in the
winking out phenomenon disappeared, never to be seen again. It was as if
they had not existed.
For all intents and purposes, that was precisely the case. Reality
was ceasing to be. Time was coming to a halt.
Long before reality faded entirely, the world would have been swept
clean of life by the massive, unnatural catastrophes. The Doctor would
have his hour, but little more.
There was a final choice to be made. There was space for three
comfortably in the time capsule. Five could fit, with great difficulty.
Six was impossible. There would be someone left behind.
Sylia looked at each of them in turn. "I cannot ask any one of you
to stay," she said. "I cannot, and will not. If we succeed, whoever
remains will live in the reality that we recreate, and will remember none
of this. If we fail..." She trailed off, unable to continue.
"Don't, Sylia," warned Priss hotly. "Largo is toast. Count on
it."
Mackie spoke up cautiously. "Sis, I...uh..." He squeezed his eyes
shut, and his voice shook with emotion. "I'll stay."
Tears ran down her cheek, for the second time that day.
"I know I won't be much help if I come. I don't h-have a hardsuit
like...like... Just come back for me, okay? Don't let me die here alone,
for nothing..."
"Oh, Mackie," she whispered, hugging him close. Little brother,
she thought sadly. How much stronger than I you are. It's not fair, is
it?
The building trembled, shaken to its core. Water -- salt water --
began to flow into the lab from the open doorway, covering the floor. "We
must go now!" said the Doctor. "We haven't any more time!"
They jammed themselves into the tiny capsule. Sylia entered last
of all, unable to take her eyes from Mackie. He stood, unmoving, at the
door.
He waved once. "Go on. I believe in you."
Then the seawater poured into the room in full force, burying him
instantly. "NO!!!" She screamed.
The room swam before her eyes, as a horrible grinding sound echoed
painfully throughout the small room...and they slipt...
...whirling...tumbling...
...caught in a vortex of light...
...and...