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“I think time is fractured.” If the twit did this, it was either major ballsy or completely stupid. Possibly both.

“How do we fix it?”

Nice he included himself in the solution. “Working on it, sir.” She looked at the gazebo. Still empty.
Deal with the problem in front of you.
In this case, that would be a hole in the ground. She swallowed hard, told herself it was dust from the explosion that made her throat so dry. Looked at Fyn. “Are we in?”

* * * *

Faustus managed to get off a shot before Robert hit him.
It’s on stun,
Robert told himself.
He hadn’t wanted to kill me and he wouldn’t have taken time to change the setting, didn’t have time.
Robert wasn’t sure his body would do what he needed until it did. He slammed Faustus into the stone floor of the gazebo, hitting his head hard enough to at least stun him. He went limp, but Robert still had to resist the urge to pound his head against stone. Halane vanished, but Em didn’t. Had Faustus stunned her?

“Em?” He started to get up, wanted to go to her, though his gut told him not to leave the bad guy, not even for love.

The wait seemed long—she lifted her head and looked at him, her eyes a bit wide, like she was surprised he’d missed, too. Managed a low beam smile as she scrambled to her feet, tucked her weapon back in her corset. Sand stuck to her eyebrows and ends of her hair and there were streaks of dirt on her face and her coat looked more beige and brown than white. It still billowed as she trotted up the last rise to join him, reminding him of his first sight of her in the bowling alley. The data pad and Faustus’ weapon had both slid part way down the slope, then caught in a low rise bush. She stopped and picked them up. She tucked the data pad in one of her pockets. Started to add the weapon to her corset, but stopped, perhaps from lack of space. She filled it out rather nicely.

She examined it with more care than the last time, before pointing it at the downed bad guy. Robert backed off Faustus, saw his eyes open, though he looked dazed. “Kneel. Hands behind your head.”

Em pointed the weapon at Faustus, too. “What he said.” Only then did she look at him. Made a face. “At least I didn’t shoot you.”

“You did great.” Robert allowed himself a slight, satisfied smile and saw rage stutter into Faustus’ eyes. Em shifted closer, her grip on the weapon tightening.

“The evil overlord.”

Still not a question. He’d have grinned if weren’t for the time tsunami incoming. Faustus knew it. His glare shifted into triumph.

“You can’t stop it.” He looked at Em, showed interest. “The wench with the wrench. Em. Emily Babcock perhaps? I’ll have to look you up in the past.”

Robert kicked his weapon from stun to kill and Faustus just smiled more.

“That won’t stop me. The wave will arrive and erase this moment.”

“Your shields—”

“I dropped them.”

It might be the truth. No way to know for sure.

“He really is evil,” Em said, “like uber-evil, not to mention a creepy, peeping tom. And the bug maker. I know its kind of bad form to shoot an unarmed creep, but I won’t judge. Or tell. Sometimes you have to do what you have to do.”

And just like that, Robert knew she was right.

“Okay.”

Faustus’ eyes widened for several seconds as he stared into the muzzle, appeared to brace for it. Then Robert swung the weapon toward the tied up Faustus of the past and depressed the trigger. He did it before he could stop to think, because if he had, he wouldn’t have been able to do it. Though he had Delilah’s memories, he’d never taken a life. This Faustus hadn’t embraced evil yet, but would. Faustus’s eyes widened even more, his mouth, too, but time drowned out his cry of rage. It howled in like a cyclone, churning around them in an angry swarm. It felt like a sand storm pelting them, or maybe small electrical shocks, though not even a piece of grass bent to its force. Robert jumped to Em, held her close, trying to shield her from the worst of it, wanting to look away, but not able to do it as Faustus dissolved in a twisting, writhing howl of rage.

* * * *

Fyn lay full length on the ground, holding Doc by the wrists as he lowered her into the hole, because she didn’t want to wait for a rope. One of his team shone a light down there, a narrow beam that revealed a stone floor. When he’d lowered her as far as he could, he released her wrists, letting her drop the last few feet. She landed lightly, lifted her P-90, flicking on the light, and did a circuit to clear the room. The air smelled stale, with a bit of explosives residue mixed in. It was like most of the Garradian labs she’d seen, though there were differences. This one had a desk that might have been wood, with a scattering of yellowing paper littering the top. While they’d found some books, no one had found any papers of any other kind anywhere else on the outpost.
They
tried to distract her, whined for her to look, to explore, to forget why she was there. She shook
them,
not off, but as far away as she could. She had to focus on this moment, this task.

He’s stronger than you think.
But was he strong enough to get himself home from another reality?

She gave herself an internal shake.
Focus on the job in front of you.
She padded to one of the consoles that marched the perimeter of the space. It didn’t light up at her approach. Could they, would they work without nanites? She touched the access pad. The gel-like surface felt cool. It flickered a bit at the touch of her finger, so she put her hand on it and light spread from the spot. The screens came on, warnings in Garradian scrolling across them all.

The translation wasn’t perfect, but the gist of it was that a virus had been detected, a massive time wave was incoming, and the fail-safe had been disabled.

* * * *

If Robert thought eliminating Faustus would solve their problems, well, time seemed intent on proving him wrong. It was the collapse of the alternate New York and every bad weather event for all time, including several volcanoes, rolled into one. It grabbed the airships and spun them around the outpost like they were toys. Then automatons appeared, fighter craft from the Doolittle shooting at them and what might be zombies chasing two men and…Fyn. Robert blinked and looked again. It was Fyn, or his twin kneeling by a hole at the base of the hill.

“We need to get there,” Robert shouted. He didn’t have peep boost to get them upright. They had to do it on their own, with time fighting them from every direction, or so it felt.

Em stared where he pointed, opened and closed her mouth, then just looked at him, like she wanted to ask, but also didn’t want to know, or maybe didn’t know what to ask. It did look a bit funhouse, without the fun. Objects blinked in and out of view, one of them the woman Em had shot, who seemed to be waking up.

“I should apologize—” Em started, but Robert yanked her close and kissed her. Hard. Stopped. Did it again. Just in case.

“No matter what happens, don’t let go of my hand and keep moving.” She nodded, her hand tightening around his. “Let’s go!”

Never had he missed the peeps more, though the howling outside was louder than the one inside his head.
They
lacked their usual viciousness when faced with time in pissed mode and alternate realities blinking in and out of view. In the New York reality, he’d known the boundaries of it, knew where to go to escape. Here, all he had was instinct and huge dose of desperation driving them down the hill—which also helped. They needed every advantage as time tried to tug them back, tried to push against them.

Once they ran through shadow people, they and the people both pausing to look back…and when they started forward again, they narrowly avoided colliding with an automaton.

It took a slow swing at them, but then a missile hit it. The explosion splattering against an invisible wall.

Which side, which reality were they in? No way to know, though the smoke from the airship attack showed him the edges of one—the contracting edges, he realized.

Ahead of him, Fyn faded in and out of view.

The hill hadn’t seemed this high when he’d climbed it.

Fyn appeared to see them. Actually looked startled, well as startled as he could look.

The men with him started to raise their weapons, but stopped at his signal.

Em stumbled and almost went down. He swept his arm around her waist, kept her on her feet.

Didn’t need the peeps with adrenalin coursing through his veins, and the need to save the woman he loved. Felt like Em had when she leapt the roof as he jumped them both over a bench, like he could fly if it meant saving her.

Felt time snapping at his heels, a cold breath on the back of his neck. He loosed his hold on Em, pushing her ahead of him. Had to keep her safe.

Fyn appeared to steady and solidify. If he called out, Robert couldn’t hear over the roaring from behind them.

Robert felt a plucking at his back, like long, cold fingers and pushed Em forward into Fyn’s hold.

“Take cover!”

He stumbled and went down and down some more. The cold swept over him as he tumbled head over heels…

FORTY-THREE

If Doc hadn’t caught a glimpse of Robert’s face, she’d have jumped back, not forward to cushion his fall. She wrapped her arms around him, took the hit to her back against stone, rolled them both to absorb the impact. As soon as they stopped, with her half sprawled on his chest, her fingers groped for—and found—a pulse.

“Robert—”

“Robert! Robert! He was right here—”

“He’s down here,” Doc called. She frowned. That was a woman’s voice. Before she had time to erase the frown, Fyn lowered someone down the same way he had her. She dropped, landing pretty well, then scrambled to Robert, dropped down by his side, smoothing his hair off a very dirty face. The girl was dirty, too. And stank. The homeless looking girl who’d been with Glarmere and Carig.

“Robert-oh-my-darling.” She lifted his head on her lap, her hands stroking his face like she had the right.

Oh my darling?
Like she hadn’t heard that joke a million times in her life. Just what had gone on while Robert was missing for all of maybe five hours?

Robert’s lashes flickered once. “Em?”

“I’m right here, Robert-oh-my-darling.”

Apparently a lot.

His lids lifted, he found her hand and managed a smile. “Em.” There was relief in the single word. Lots of relief. Doc could tag it as an inordinate amount of relief. Way out of proportion to the event even.

“I’m here, too,” Doc pointed out, her tone a bit on the dry side.

His other hand grasped Doc’s. “Hey, little sister.” He looked around, started to sit up. Doc and this Em helped him upright. He swayed a bit, but then seemed to steady.

“I’m all right.”

“How nice for you.” Robert looked at her. “I broke your fall.”

He grinned. “That’s two I owe you.” He looked around again. “Where are we?”

“Smith’s hidden lab. I was just about to—”

“Doesn’t look like an evil overlord’s lab,” Em said.

“You’re not related—no, you couldn’t be,” Doc said, feeling her eyes twitch like they had when talking to the twit. “It’s the…evil overlord’s lab to-be. He hasn’t moved in yet, though he did manage to booby trap it. Breaching it released a virus that went after the nanites.”

Robert looked up. “Is that why you blew a hole in it?” His chin dropped and he caught site of the tracking screens. “I thought eliminating Smith would do more to end the wave.”

“You killed Smith?” Doc felt…a bit proud of her little brother.

“The real Smith. The one you know wasn’t actually Smith—”

“He was half zombie,” Em said, a bit on the cheerful side, as if zombies were her norm. “Mind control. With this bug thing.”

“I have seen one—” Doc started, aware her tone was not encouraging. Was it because Robert kept looking at the girl like she was the sun?

“If you let it grab your finger, you can make the zombies, the ones who aren’t half zombie, sing and dance. I was going to do it, let it get me again, to save the time pins—”

Doc twitched. Couldn’t help it. This grubby little ragamuffin had saved the time pins?

“—but that girl Carig got it on his finger when I dropped it, so I let him save them. Though I had to trick him into running away.” This time Em looked guilty. “I told him if he didn’t run the bug would turn him into a zombie.”

“You did good, Em.” Robert looked at Doc, grinning like, well, she’d never seen him grin. Ever. Or look that happy. Not even when she saved him from the mental institution.

“Really?” Doc managed neutral, but couldn’t stop herself from looking the ragamuffin over, top to bottom. She might have tilted a bit toward intimidating. This ragamuffin seemed to have her hooks in Robert, who was so not prepared for it. Robert confirmed it by looking totally sappy.

“This is my sister, Em. Delilah, this is Em. Emily Babcock. She’s the one with the museum.” He looked from Doc to Em, like he now thought they’d girl bond.

“The museum? How quaint.” Delilah knew her tone was cool, wary. “You look like you’ve had quite a day.”

“Only the best day
ever
. Robert’s sister. Wow. I didn’t know he had a sister.” She kind of smoothed her hair, sending a mini-shower of sand to the floor, wiped her hands in her dirty coat and held one out. “I love the whole Morticia vibe you’ve got going on. You would so rock the steampunk cons.”

Delilah’s brows arched as she shook Em’s hand. “Thank you.” She looked at Robert, no clue what to ask. It was fortunate her radio activated, because he’d gotten even more sappy looking.

“Delilah? Please tell me you are making progress. It is getting rather…intense up here.”

“It’s Hel.” She half turned, tapping her radio. “Have the fighters reappeared yet?”

Emily’s brows arched. “The space ships? I saw them. Robert, I saw them! They almost made the two girls wet their pants when they went after the automatons. Rockets red glare and everything. It was so cool.”

Hel’s tone was calm, with a bit of relieved in there, a bit of worried. “The atmosphere is becoming more unstable.”