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“Do you suppose his workshop exists here, if it is a piece of New York?”

Emily’s brows rose. “That’s a very good question.”

Knowing her dislike of questions, that was high praise. It was hard to say for sure in the reflected light from her flash, but Robert had the impression she blushed.

“Are you all right?” He needed to find a new way to ask that question.

“It’s Nod.” She shifted from one foot to the other. “He wants to talk to Wynken and Blynken.”

“Okay.” Robert paused. “They can hear you talking.”

“Talking isn’t efficient.” She bit her lip.

“They can’t connect here.”

She looked away, sighed, bit her lip again. “Nod thinks if we, you know, kiss, that they’ll be able to connect. That the connection problem is a skin surface thing?” She gave a half shrug. “I swear he said it. I’m not just saying this because you kiss like it’s your job or anything.”

“I kiss like it’s my job?” Robert went from geek to total guy, accompanied by all the physiological shifts that went with being a guy.

“You have to know how totally hot you are, with the whole smart guy-yummy-accent-perfect-build thing you got going.”

He cleared his throat. “No, I didn’t know that.”

“Oh. Well, now you know.” She shifted from side to side again. “Of course, I’m embarrassed.”

“Please don’t be.” He paused. “Well.”

Kiss the girl!

Robert did not know why he saw a talking crab inside his head, but he wanted to do what it said. He shifted closer, awkward and eager. Emily stilled at his approach, which helped. As if they knew what to do, his hands drifted to rest on either side of her face. She’d picked up a lot of dirt since the last time they kissed, and her mouth had lost the last of her lipstick a long time ago, but none of that mattered as he bent his head and she tilted hers to accommodate his approach.

And then their lips were together again. The feel of her, the taste of her trumped even his brain’s ability to multitask. All of it, all of him, focused on her, on this kiss. The peeps could talk without them. He did retain enough sentience to know when her arms slid around to his back and gripped his tee shirt, like she needed to hang on. He matched her hug with his arms, pulling her tight against him. His own Abram’s ball formed around his heart and surged out, going all the way to outer ends of toes and fingers. Everything about holding her, about kissing her felt right—

The shuffling sound had just started to penetrate his preoccupation when the thump of something wood against a skull yanked him out of the kiss. Interesting he knew it was wood and bone connecting.

He put a finger to his lips as hers started to open, then holding her hand, but keeping her behind him, he drifted to the door and peered out. A head eased over the side of the airship—one that belonged to the colonial man.

“I saw you leave and followed.” He rubbed his face, with a gesture that was very tired, very human. “He approached the airship, so I hit him.”

Robert pushed the door wider and stepped out, tugging Emily after him. They peered over at yet another crumpled figure.

“We should get him up in here.” Emily looked at Robert. “Tie them both up.”

“With what?”

Emily used her free hand to dig around in a pocket and pull out a thick cylinder of something.

“Duct tape. WD-40 and duct tape are a girl’s best friends.”

* * * *

It was a pity he had to spend this specimen ahead of schedule. Faustus almost sighed. It couldn’t be helped. And what couldn’t be helped could at least be enjoyed. His death should prove entertaining. The specimen considered himself to be both bold and brave. This version of Vidor Shan didn’t have a control device. He didn’t need one. It had never part of the plan to control him. It had always been his fate to die. The similar specimen collected from the alternate reality was the one that needed to be controlled. How ironic that it was a simple—well, a relatively simple—accident that had shown him the path to controlling time. A little programming error with a time containment facility had created a small slice of an alternate reality—a reality that could be entered and exited. Realities that could be mined for specimens enough like the ones in this reality to replace them—with the modification of the control device. Ostensibly they were pins holding time in place. In reality, they were time bombs waiting for him to detonate them.

The replaced pins could be deleted and Time didn’t even whimper. It didn’t care and seemed none the wiser. But if he deleted the real pin while a replaced pin was in position? It created a most satisfying effect.

“What do you wish me to do with him, Master?” Doctor asked. He looked at the angry specimen in the merciless grip of two automatons. Licked his lips in anticipation. The Doctor did love his experiments. Stronger specimens lasted longer, giving him more data.

He gave him a regretful look. “I fear we must delete him.”

It wasn’t as fun for Doctor as playing with his brain, but deleting provided some educational value, beyond the entertainment factor, since each specimen reacted differently to the process. Doctor gave the command to the two automatons holding Shan and they wrestled him into the chamber. He fought well, wasn’t afraid. By the time he learned to fear, it would be too late. Not that he had ever had a chance for a different outcome.

Doctor activated the machine. It rumbled for a while before sending the deadly steam into the container. It took a while for Shan to realize he was dying. The Constilinium-laced steam dissolved a human specimen from the inside out. Sometimes, though not often, the look of horror was the last to dissolve. As the screams—and the face—faded into ghostly white, the laboratory shook, as if it had sustained a mighty blow. He smiled. The instability was a shadow of the blow making its way through the stream to whomever—or most likely whatever—thought they could stop him.

* * * *

While they waited, yet again, for Colonial guy to consult with the others, Emily leaned against the river bank, looking at Robert with such calm confidence it almost made the jagged holes inside him heal, almost made him feel whole. She was a bright star in the shadows that had been his life up to now. Even here, in this place, he felt different, less crazy Robert, more something new. He glanced around. Of course, it was possible it was crazy to feel less crazy in this place.

“Nod says it worked. There was an information exchange.” She looked away, half blushing. “He, it, didn’t like the interruption.”

We didn’t like it either.

Robert hadn’t liked it that much. Kissing Emily was better than everything and anything about this place. Of course, almost everything would be.

“I’m not sure what they are.” The bulk of his crazy was crazy about Emily, he realized. His smile wasn’t forced, nor did it feel unnatural when directed at her. “When we get to a quieter place, we can try the information exchange again.” He sank down next to her, feeling insanely happy, which would have been disturbing if it weren’t for the happy part of his insane. A brief hesitation, then he covered one of her hands, with one of his. “I’ll find a way to get us out of this, Emily.”

Her smile was high beam. “I know.” She nudged him with her shoulder. “My friends call me Em—though never, ever Aunty Em.”

He vaguely recognized the reference to
The Wizard of Oz
. “No one called me anything like a nickname, well, except my sister used to call me Professor. And my team called me Prof, but that’s it for nicknames.”

Her eyes seemed mysterious. “Not-Jones at the museum called you that. It does suit you. You’re not a Rob or Bob kind of guy, though I like the geeky tough guy thing you’ve got going on.” Her head tipped to the side. “Not a Clem either.”

“Clem?”

“Short for Clementyne. Robert suits you.” Her smile beamed out again, though he thought it might have a halo of weary around it. She upped that impression by leaning her shoulder against his with a sigh that might have been relief.

“I’ve never met anyone like you, Em.” He tried out the nickname, found it easier than he’d expected. Casual was new to him, before or after his break.

“That’s the downside of being me.” Wry edged the high beam from her smile.

“No. It’s all upside.” He glanced around. “When we get out of this, I need to tell you,” he sighed, rubbed his face, feeling an echo of her weary. “So much that I need to tell you.”

“A guy who wants to share.” Her gaze turned tender. “I wish you were real.”

He wanted to tell her he was real, so real and all hers if she’d have him, but after telling her he wanted to talk, he couldn’t. He shouldn’t have, but he did. He leaned in and kissed her again. Not as hard, but going for longer—until the ground shook, hard enough to shake them apart.

Dreamy joined tender in her gaze. Her lips curved up, also tender, but with amused in there, too.

“The earth moved.” He tried to wrap his scattered thoughts around it, but it wasn’t easy while looking at Emily.

“Yes, it did.”

He grinned, knowing it was a bit wry. “I don’t think that was us.”

She stroked a finger along the seam of his lips. “It’s happened every time. The facts speak for themselves.”

She thought she was dreaming, he reminded himself, even as he started to bend back into more earth shaking—

The Colonial guy poked his head out of the opening and waved at them to come. His bad timing felt ironic, though Robert couldn’t have said why. Em’s regretful sigh eased what had tensed inside him. She’d asked him to call her Em. This place was growing on him. He almost liked it. Okay, maybe like was not the correct description, but for a grim, dank and disgusting sewer, it wasn’t bad. He got upright, despite his desire not to, tugged her upright, too. Her hand felt right in his, like it belonged there. “Once more into the breach?”

Her smile turned the heat back up around his heart, helping those spots chilling from proximity withdrawal. “It does seem indicated.”

TWENTY-TWO

To his annoyance, Doctor looked anxious again. It implied a lack of trust in the inevitability of his Master’s plans. He let displeasure chill his tone. “What?”

“More specimens have gone off the grid.”

Was there a pattern to the losses? Without looking at his records, there was no way to tell if they were going off line in the order they’d gone online, but it seemed the obvious answer, though even if they were out of order, it could still be Time. Time wasn’t orderly or neat in this laboratory. “Which ones?”

“An airship crew.”

His correction had not yet neutralized Time’s attempt to correct itself, or least it wasn’t showing up in the stream data yet. Funny how much time it took to fix Time. Or perhaps it was ironic. It was also annoying when one had other tasks, other priorities. His plans were reaching their natural fruition. He’d gained control of a very limited section of non-sentient nanites. He’d had to be careful, so as not to set off the base’s very rigorous monitoring, but they’d done his minor bidding. Now he needed to test them to see if they’d do something against their programming.

“Which sector?”

Doctor moved to a vintage map of the laboratory, the boundaries of this alternate reality outlined what had been a section of Twitchet’s New York City in the 1890’s, a map heavily dotted with old style light bulbs. The control devices sent out a crude radio signal that caused a bulb to light when the specimen was connected to the grid. At the edge of the laboratory, not far from the river, two of the bulbs were out.

“Send a dozen specimens in the vicinity and three of the drone automatons to collect them.” It was a bit of overkill for two possibly unsecured specimens, but he had a sense, an instinct that something was off in his little kingdom. “Have the drones observe the area before you give the order to move in. Let’s see what our two specimens do with their new freedom.”

“Yes, master.” Doctor looked disappointed.

The man always had need of specimens for his experiments. If the drone automatons got a hold of them, they probably wouldn’t survive collection, but Faustus wasn’t in the mood to please anyone but himself.

“Have the drones wait until after the specimens have surrounded the airship, then they can move in and secure them. Make sure there is a recording from all the drones.” There might be something to learn from it and if not, it would entertain him later. He threw the Doctor a bone. “If either of them survives, I’m sure you can find a use for them.” If their control devices had failed, they wouldn’t survive a second insertion. The devices had just enough technology to control a specimen, but had been designed to be un-tech enough to inhibit nanite control. They hadn’t been able to make them totally nanite resistant, so Doctor had created the corrosive compound. It was the compound that made a second insertion impossible, since a second round corroded the brain stem.

Doctor’s eyes lit up. “Yes, Master. There is a new control device that is proving challenging to integrate. I can use them to test it.”

His eyes narrowed. “I’d like to see this new device, Doctor.”

“Of course, Master.” Nervous made a comeback.

This time he didn’t mind. Doctor must never forget he was expendable, too.

* * * *

Doc knew she was being bitchy with this descendent of hers. Relative or not, it made her twitchy to sit down with the sulky, little twit and know she carried one of her peeps. How could one of her descendants have allied with the time creeps? If she hadn’t seen Hel’s eyes looking at her out of that pale,
lavender
-tinted face, she’d have shot her on arrival. The fact that they shared a nose didn’t lessen the desire to deploy a weapon, since the nose was also shaded lavender. Nothing else about her said, hello great grandma either. She’d done her camo thing—which Doc could admit to envying—but it didn’t take away the memory of her punk rocker hair that probably grew from the roots a dark brown and shot through with gold, green and even more lavender. A punker’s dream, but a bit too many colors intermingling in the unruly cap for Doc to form a bond. And then her attitude about Smith—she still wasn’t convinced it mattered where he was from, though she could admit to a slight amount of prejudice on the subject.