Spires of Infinity (42 page)

Gabriel heard a familiar and very welcome rattling sound from Aaron’s coat

pocket. Looking down, he saw a green plastic bottle with a white cap and his jaw dropped. “Is that Excedrin?”

Aaron looked down into his pocket and removed the bottle, holding it up for

Gabriel to see. It was indeed.

“Damn, ten billion years and still going. I am
totally
buying stock in Excedrin.

Look, give me three of those and I’ll tell you anything you want to know.”

“Why,” Aaron asked suspiciously.

“Are you blind? Look at the bloody, bruising lump on my forehead. It hurts like a son of a bitch. Why do you think I want it?”

Aaron dumped three of the round, white pills into his hand and offered them to Gabriel. Gabriel opened his mouth and he dropped them in.

“Get some water in here so he can swallow those,” Aaron said to the tech in the outer room.

“No need,” Gabriel said as he dry swallowed the pills. He’d always been able to do that.

“Oh that’s just great,” Henry said. “Give the man I plan to torture some pain killers. Beautiful.”

“Well,” Aaron said, making a moving on gesture with his hand.

“I’m a time traveler. Originally from Earth in the distant past, but most recently from a few hundred years in your future.”

“You see,” Henry jabbed a finger at Gabriel. “That’s the sort of drivel I’ve had to put up with from him since I started two hours ago!”

“Well, if you don’t want the truth,” Gabriel tried to shrug, “I’ll take my Excedrin and call it a win.”

“Why would a time traveler want to come here,” Aaron asked, with an indulgent

look on his face. “Interested in the historic activation of this facility?”

“Uh, no. I’m here to destroy the place.”

“There,” Henry cried. “He admits it! He
is
from Purple Haven!”

“I have no idea who Purple Haven are. Something like those Green Peace pussy

hypocrites? I came to stop you from making a
huge
mistake. Six hundred years from now your sun is dying. This moon is freezing to death, and the only way people have to deal with the cold is to alter their genetic structure to raise their body temperatures. It’s all happening because of what you did here today. I came to stop it.”

“And how did you travel to this time,” Aaron asked skeptically.

“I used the Spires of Infinity of course. How many other time machines do you know of?”

“There,” Henry cried. “A lie. If you’re a time traveler you’d know that’d cause a paradox.”

“Yeah,” Gabriel grinned. “Exciting, isn’t it. But you have to admit, I
do
know that this facility is capable of time travel. Who else would know that? I’m sure that’s the sort of secret you like to keep close.”

“I’ve heard enough of this,” Henry growled. “I’m going to prepare to torture

him.”

“You’re making a big mistake here,” Gabriel said. “You’re killing your world

and everyone on it. You need to let me do what I came here to do or this world is dead in six hundred and fifty years. When you finally realize your mistake it’ll be too late. And
then
it’ll cause a nuclear war.
Kaboom
! Not only is the sun dying, but the world is also polluted beyond recognition. All because you idiots didn’t think things through before flipping the switch.”

“That’s very imaginative,” Aaron said. “I’ll give you that.”

“There’s just one thing I don’t understand,” Gabriel said. “You can’t create mass out of nowhere. So where did you get enough mass to create a black hole? Sorry,
singularity
.”

“I’m afraid that’s classified information,” Henry growled.

“Wait,” Gabriel said with sudden understanding. “I know. The missing moon,

right? Sam said there used to be one more moon, but it mysteriously disappeared. Did you somehow crush it down to the size of a pea or something?”

“Something like that,” Aaron shrugged to Henry. “It’s a bit complicated. You have to admit, he
does
know an awful lot about this place for a common terrorist.”

“I hope you enjoy pain,” Henry said to Gabriel. “I’m really going to enjoy

hurting you.”

“Analyze the jewels you took from me. One of them has a copy of your AIOS.

She’ll confirm everything I’ve told you.”

Pounding on the glass for the tech in the outer room to open up, Henry stormed through it and the outer door to the hallway outside. Sighing, Aaron followed. The glass slid back into place and the tech turned back to his monitors. Gabriel noticed, with some amusement, that he was playing solitaire.

Suddenly the tech began sneezing repeatedly. He coughed, and choked, rubbing

at his eyes for about a minute before he got up and dashed out the door.

Mister Mittens prowled out from under the console, leaping onto the chair, then to the keyboard. Examining it for a second, he deliberately punched in four digits and hit Enter with one of his paws. The glass door slid open and the cat turned to look at Gabriel with that smugly superior expression cats normally wore.

“
Good
kitty,” Gabriel said with a grin. “I never knew a cat that could unlock a prison cell. How did you know the code.”

“You told me it was thirteen thirty-seven,” Mister Mittens said slowly. “Don’t you remember?”

Eyeing the cat in confusion, Gabriel didn’t even know how he would have

discovered the code in the first place to give it to the cat, much less when he was supposed to have had time to do it.

“The key to the handcuffs is on the edge of the console to your left.”

Picking up the key in his mouth, the cat leapt from the console. He ran through the door and jumped onto Gabriel’s knee, then to his shoulder. Gabriel cupped both hands behind his back, and a heartbeat later a very wet key landed in his palm. Seconds later he was free and gathering his things from a pile on the console. He buckled on his gunbelt and knife, and replaced the Sa’Dhi in their jacks with a wince. He finished by slinging the shotgun over his shoulder.

“Oh, you’re back,” Allie appeared before him. “Excellent. How did you manage to escape? I was shut down when they unplugged my Sa’Dhi from your hand.”

“Mister Mittens to the rescue,” Gabriel said, nodding to the cat on his shoulder.

“Now, where’s Sam?”

“Across the hall,” Mister Mittens said. “Her cell code is twelve thirteen.”

“I knew there had to be some reason for her to keep an annoying furball like you around,” Gabriel said. “Good job, kitty.”

Mister Mittens made a disgusted sound and lay down across Gabriel’s shoulders.

“Call me kitty again and you’ll regret it!”

Stepping cautiously into the hallway, Gabriel looked both ways to find that it was completely empty. Allie was right, there didn’t seem to be many people working here today.

“It sure was lucky that tech was violently allergic to cats,” Gabriel muttered as he drew his pistol and kicked the door in. Sam’s cell was identical to Gabriel’s in every way except mirrored.

“Is that my coffee,” the tech asked without looking up from a game of FreeCell.

“About damn time.”

Thanking god, and Microsoft, for addictive electronic card games, Gabriel walked up behind him and knocked him senseless with the butt of his pistol, toppling him to the floor.

Mister Mittens leapt to the console and punched in the door code. The glass slid aside and Gabriel rushed in to find Sam actually
sleeping
in her chair, handcuffed to it the same way he’d been.

“Sam,” Gabriel shook her.

How the hell could she
sleep
at a time like this!

“Oh, hi Gabriel,” Sam yawned. “Oh, and Mister Mittens too. My heroes. You

two keep saving my tail. Sure took you long enough, though. That guy had
really
bad breath! It was the worst torture imaginable.”

“I had the same treatment,” Gabriel said as he unlocked her handcuffs.

“They took my blood,” Sam said. “And they made me pee in a cup for them right here. I mean, I’ve never had a problem with people watching me piss or anything.

Everyone pisses, so what’s there to be embarrassed about, right, but do you have any idea how hard it is to get the right angle while you’re handcuffed to a chair? Seriously!

Female anatomy is not made for that sort of thing! Messy as hell! I just showered too!

I’m gonna smell like piss for hours now! That nurse was a girl, she should have known better! I wonder why they wanted those things anyway. Kinda weird, don’t you think?”

“What did you say the place where they found all the data on NVM was called,”

Gabriel asked.

“Um, Excel I think,” Sam said.

“I think they just used your blood and piss to invent NVM.”

“Really,” Sam asked as she stood and stretched. “Wow, my piss is famous!

Imagine that.”

“Wait,” Mister Mittens said as Sam picked him up and kissed him on the nose.

“If they used her samples to invent NVM, wouldn’t that mean that we’re going to fail?”

“How should I know,” Gabriel said. “I have
no
idea how this crap works. I’m a lawyer! I’m going off of
fiction
here.”

Moving to the outer room, Gabriel picked up Sam’s pistol, handing it to her. She shook her head. “You keep it. You’re sending me back now, aren’t you? You’ll need it more than I will.”

“How did you know I was going to—“

“Sorry,” Sam said with an exaggerated wink. “That’s a secret.”

“Allie,” Gabriel said. “Can I make a Gate from this computer?”

“It is connected to the mainframe,” Allie said. “But in order to open a Gate we will need to lock the past Allie out of the security and Gate Jump systems. I’ll need to place an encryption on them that will take her time to break through. We’ll have to hurry to the mainframe and disable it afterward before she breaks the encryption and sounds an alarm.”

“Tell me what to do,” Gabriel said.

“Can you really hear her,” Sam asked.

Gabriel nodded as he sat down at the computer.

“I cannot tell you how to do it,” Allie leaned into his field of vision and smiled.

“Much too complicated. I will need to borrow your hands for a few minutes and do it myself. Speaking the Sa’Dhi code word will give me control.”

Gabriel hesitated for a second. What if she didn’t want to give his body back when she was done?

“Oh come on,” Allie made a pouty face at him. “Do you not trust me? If it

makes any difference your affinity for this Sa’Dhi is very low. I can probably only manage twenty continuous minutes of control over you.”

“Fine,” Gabriel sighed. “Halo.”

Allie vanished from his sight. “Relax. Do not fight against me. Just let me work.”

Gabriel’s hands jerked awkwardly toward the keyboard. His first reaction was to try and pull them back, but he was able to restrain it. His eyes widened as his fingers started typing in commands so quickly that they actually began to burn with the exertion of it.

“First we lock out the computer from being able to stop us or raise an alarm about it,” Allie said. “Then we encrypt it. And now for the Gate Jump.”

A bolt of lightning shot down from the ceiling and split apart, making a Gate in the cell, cutting the table and one of the chairs in half.

Gabriel’s hands abruptly stopped moving and Allie reappeared. “All done. Just hit the enter key to close the Gate when she’s through.”

“I guess that’s my ride,” Sam eyed the Gate. “Good luck Gabriel. I’ll be waiting for you. Thanks for letting me help, even if I can’t stay for the whole thing. It was amazing, and I’ll never forget it. Remember, you promised to come back safe and sound.

You
promised
. I’ll be waiting for you.”

She hugged him tightly and kissed his cheek before dashing through the Gate.

Gabriel stood watching it for a second before he closed it again.

“All right,” Allie said. “We must hurry to the mainframe before the other me

manages to break through the password I put on her security systems. You will have to disable her and, to prevent the creation of another paradox, copy me to the mainframe in her place. That way I will have some control over the facility. Follow me.”

Throwing Sam’s gunbelt around his waist, he had a feeling that he was going to need both pistols if he ran into the Apostle again.

Chapter 37: The Sin of Mercy

“After we disable the computer will you be able to use the security system to find where the Apostle ran off to,” Gabriel asked as he followed Allie through offices and hallways.

“I can,” Allie nodded. “Once you install me onto the mainframe I should be able to find her if she is still here.”

“Are you sure? The past version of you hasn’t yet, or we’d have heard some sort of alarm, right?”

“I have been around much longer than her,” Allie said with more than a little

arrogance. “I am just a
tad
bit more clever than her. You heard her voice on the intercom. She sounds like a machine. Listen to me. Do I sound like a machine to you?”

“No,” Gabriel admitted.

Stopping in front of a large door that had the word RESTRICTED painted on it in big, blocky, red letters, Allie pointed to a keypad to the side and rattled off a long string of numbers.

“That is the door code. The control room where I copied myself to your Sa’Dhi is directly above here one level. You saw this room through a big window up there.”

Nodding, Gabriel remembered the large, circular room with the weird torture rack in the center.

“This room contains
the computer core,” Allie explained with evident hesitation.

“I must warn you that this may be hard for you to see.”

“What do you mean,” Gabriel asked slowly, his mind vomiting up a thousand

horrible uses for the torture rack.

“
I
am inside,” Allie’s face actually colored in embarrassment. “Or me like I used to be.”

“What’s that supposed to mean,” Gabriel asked.

“Punch in the code and see. And brace yourself.”