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27
Everything Happened At Once
Jack
AspredictableasSergeiwas to me after so many years dancing this intricate ballet together, I still couldn't guess where exactly he'd appear next in the timeline. We could have headed back to RATS and the storeroom which was now Clive's headquarters. Or we could have headed to St Petersburg or stayed here at Cape Canaveral. All of those locations meant something to Mimi, but when on the timeline Sergei would appear at any of them was debatable.
I knew the man, I knew how he thought, so I knew he'd dosomethingto garner our attention, but chasing a ghost up and down the timeline was not in the least bit helpful. So, we remained one plane away, parked just outside the LCC at the Kennedy Space Center, and watched the chaos of Mimi's escape and our infiltration unfold.
In short order, a stream of unmarked government cars arrived and spewed out dozens of suit-clad agents from various three-letter organisations. Helicopters flew overhead, sirens sounded in the distance. Agents Dawson and Carter emerged from the building looking none the worse for wear, shouting orders, directing people, and scowling at everything.
Of course, we only saw them in fits and starts as they remained immobile for split seconds and were picked up in the dimension we existed in. But it was enough to build a picture.
A part of me thought their confusion and fear was just deserts. They'd not treated Mimi well. But another part of me did feel sorry for them. Their reports would be second-guessed, their reputations would be put under scrutiny, and their lives, as they knew them, would be over. It seemed a rather steep payment for simply doing their jobs.
"I wish we could do something for them," Mimi murmured from the Intern's seat. She'd been watching the scene unflinchingly.
"Anything more we do may only make the situation worse. And Time does have its limits."
"So, no flashing into sight in the Orion in front of everyone, waving at them from the hatch and saying 'toodle-oo', and then winking away again just as Dawson and Carter would describe?"
"No," I said. "That would be ill-advised."
"That's a shame," she whispered.
I watched Mimi as much as I watched the flickering images of the agents. There was a programme the Orion could use to fill in the gaps — extrapolate from the data it received — to show what might be happening on the contemporaries' plane. But it was a programme we did not use often because it could hardly be called accurate. We saw enough, though, to know Dawson and Carter would pay for their harsh treatment of Mimi for the rest of their lives and that there was little we could do about it.
"Time travel is not for the faint of heart, Mouse," I told her. "It carries its own set of dangers. There are consequences to surfing Time's waves. All we can do is operate between the lines Time draws for us, stepping out of them as little as possible, and thereby causing as few tsunamis as we can along the way."
"Why doesn't Time just wipe their memories of us?"
"We don't know exactly what Time's limitations are, but we do know that it relies on RATS to fix tears in its waves. If it needs us for that, then what else is it unable to do itself? It's powerful, no one denies that. It could be catastrophic if it is broken completely. But somewhere between smooth sailing and total annihilation, there are limits to what Time can do for us."
"You'd think we'd know more about Time by now," she said.
"Yes, you'd think we'd have learned a lesson or two."
"Sergei should know better," she said with more conviction, her hands bunching into fists on her lap.
"Yes, he should," I murmured, feeling helpless in assuaging her guilt.
It felt like we'd been here all day, but when I checked the clock only an hour had passed. Eventually, a rip did appear in the fabric of Time, indicating Sergei was making his next move.
"RATS will send someone," I told the crew; a crew that included Charles Crawford, although he contributed very little verbally. "They should stay in their Vehicle if they have an overseer with them."
I swept the coordinates over to Mimi's console for her to check. She did so expertly, proving again just how good she was at this with so little time spent at RATS. She gave the screens one last long look, searching out Carter and Dawson, and then like the professional she was, she locked her emotions away and turned to face me.
"Ready when you are, Doctor," she said.
I was so very proud of her. It was a hard lesson to learn that not always could we limit the fallout from rips. Sergei had done this to the special agents in Mimi's contemporary time. He'd done so much worse to Mimi and her family.
It was time to end this.
I looked at Charles, who gave me a firm nod of his head, his hands resting comfortably on his thighs, his seatbelt buckled. Mouse buckled in, fumbling slightly with the technique, but in moments, we were ready.
I looked at the coordinates again. St Petersburg, 21st century. This was going to hurt.
Without causing any more tension than necessary by delaying, I hit the launch button, and the Orion roared to life. Stars formed, g-forces pressed us back in our chairs. Silence engulfed us as weightlessness lifted us against the restraints. And then, with a thunderous boom, we landed.
