Yeah...

Mr. Caliburn was pretty angry. I was going to say something at the time but he shot me this look and I knew I'd only make things worse. He obviously needed some alone time.

Outside.

Yelling at all of creation.

Or as Sebastian likes to call it, venting.

Didn't blame him then and still don't.

And I don't think any of us blame you either, Dr. Boggs. You did everything you could to help. And you stuck around to join us on the second try. For what it's worth, you have my respect. I'd work with you again.

Oh Vegas!

I love Vegas!

Now I'm jealous.

Vegas?

You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy.

Don't be too hard on yourself, Dr. Boggs. There were simply variables for which you could not account. It happens.

Tomorrow perhaps, I will relate the events leading up to the second attempt to cross over.

There is more than one way to skin a cat. Even if that cat happens to belong to the esteemed Dr Schrodinger. Especially if it was one of his.

That is why Natasha and I dropped what we were doing in Florida to make our way to where Hannah had disappeared from. The first part of the journey was made by truck. But to drive the entire distance was folly.

I had considered hiring a large charter plane and then stowing away amongst my own gear.

Natasha had a more sensible plan.

And from her perspective, it cost a great deal less to buy a single airline fare than chartering a whole plane. Not to mention the cost of transporting all that gear.

It was around midnight local time when she summoned me using the device I gave her for the purpose. I guess you could call it a beacon. There was the usual light and noise from such a transition of course. From my perspective, I was simply one place and then reappeared where Natasha had called me to.

Of course the power to cause the transition rested entirely with me and what I could do.

That is why I had to be present. Natasha is very intelligent as well as talented and is learning everything I have to teach her about the operation of my gear. Her own field of study has been surprisingly useful in explaining some of the concepts. Really, we’re both manipulating reality to suit our purposes. Still, so far we’d only dealt with the sensory devices.

No, this particular cat required my personal attention.

Anyway, I have allowed myself to go off on a tangent.

I normally like to light a cigar immediately after a transferral. Unfortunately, time was an issue. Natasha was right there, of course. With her was a bear of a man, introduced to me by her as “Kolya.”

“Glad to meet you,” I said in a bit of a rush. “I would engage in pleasantries but time is a factor here.” I gestured behind me with my thumb, “Could you please arrange to have all this gear moved someplace sheltered? And please be careful with it all. Some of it is fragile. In the meantime, I have to go to where Hannah is believed to have disappeared from.”

Apparently he did not wish to dawdle as he nodded with a grunt. Then in Russian he gave some quick directions to Natasha before moving to grab one of the larger crates. Before I could advise him to use a two man lift, he hefted it up to one of his shoulders. I’m not one to argue with what works.

We didn’t get two steps before someone else arrived on the scene. They were dressed and ready for the apocalypse. He may have shot me on the spot but Natasha and her hand signs gave him pause.

Mr. Caliburn (I would later learn his name as I would with several of the others) had a lot of questions. While I had the answers, time really was an issue so I directed him to assist Kolya for now. It was Natasha’s nod that seemed to sway him.

Fortunately her presence was able to expedite us past the others and their questions as well. That was good. It would be easier to answer their questions all at once when they were all together. And after I had found some of the answers they were looking for.

In Hannah’s room I opened my suitcase and Natasha helped me set up. Soon enough, color coded images sprang up to life around me. Symbols and equations swirled as I manipulated them.

“There’s been a recent attempt to breach the dimensional barrier,” I said with a frown.

“Is that a problem?” Natasha asked, a look of concern crossing her face.

“Yes,” there was no need to lie or instil false hope. “I don’t know the exact coordinates I’m shooting for. This second puncture in the space-time fabric is messing with my readings. Even compensating for my own entrance here, the readings are… inconsistent.”

“But you are taking the readings here, where she was.” Natasha pointed out, “surely that will make it easier?”

“Yes and no,” was my response. “Location is a relative thing even here. But especially there.” Iconic representations were dragged over each other and then discarded. Equations were solved and then removed or saved. New icons appeared. As fast as my tools are, they were barely keeping up with me. “I have isolated the dimension itself. The trick is going to be landing the rescue party as close to where and when Hannah appeared as is possible. If the site was clean, I could just reopen the hole she used. Now it is a shot in the dark.”

She fell silent as I continued to work.

The more information I gathered, the more frustrated I became. There were more variables than enough to be solved.

Did I say solved?

I was guessing.

Didn’t tell anyone that at the time though.

Besides, this wasn’t exactly my first rodeo.

Eventually, a couple of Natasha’s colleagues arrived. They had a short exchange in their native tongue. Not to be rude but to convey the needed information faster. If I had really wanted to know what was being said, I had the means at my disposal. But the fact was it is far easier to drown out something that is foreign to your ears. And I really needed to focus on the task at hand.

Soon a crowd was gathered at the door, perspiration showing from their labours. Some of the gear I brought was quite heavy. The riddles I was trying to solve had their own weight and sweat from a different sort of labour was on my brow.

Between the light show and the motions of my arms to manipulate it, there was quiet instilled in the spectators. The questions and answers between them were whispered murmurs.

Except for Sebastian. He had some rather pointed comments to make about us wasting our time before he stormed off. At least he did not attempt to disrupt the proceedings.

Finally, I sighed. “I have the coordinates. I can get you there.”

“Finally! Let’s get going,” Mr. Caliburn was clearly eager to be underway. His aggressive body language made me question the wisdom of including in this operation.

“There are preparations that must still be made.” I said calmly.

“What the hell was all of this about then?” he demanded. The agitation suggested heightened emotional distress in the man. There were clinical signs that he had not been sleeping properly, as well.

“Do you take me for some conjurer of cheap tricks, Mr. Caliburn? I do not leap without looking first. Nor would I send others into harms way without checking things out first.”

Fortunately the man understood the importance of good intelligence and was set at ease somewhat by that. “When?” He was still very blunt and to the point, however.

“I will spend the night setting up,” I made some quick calculations in my head as I appreciated the available time. “I will work through the night. I will have my preparations done and be able to give a proper mission briefing at 0800hrs tomorrow morning. In the mean time, I suggest all of you get some rest.”

It was going to be a long day and night.

Doctor Boggs wrote:As to the rest, well, times marches on and such.

The real trick, is getting time to march to the beat of a different drummer.

Even this tale of false starts and mis-steps would have been preferable to any of us to just waiting around, uncertain. You're surrounded by people of action, Hannah. Waiting around is not something we're good at.

Mr. Caliburn, I have two daughters of my own so I can sympathize a great deal. I hold no hard feelings over what happened. But you really should get some rest.

I suppose I should relate what happened on the second attempt to send the team over.

It did take me all night to prepare for the transition to the faerie world. One of the first things I realized was that I was severely constrained by available power resources. Most of the energy is consumed in initially opening a portal between planes. How many people or how much material sent each time would be relatively immaterial. Up to six tons could be sent over as easily as a gram.

The problem lay in the fact that I could operate the equipment only twice and maintain a comfortable safety margin. Plenty for a single round trip but I couldn’t be sending people back and forth, willy-nilly. Everyone who was going over would have to go at once and they would all have to return at the same time. To that end, I synchronized the beacons I would be sending over with the team. When I received the return signal from one of them, I would return all of them. I had just enough beacons to provide for each member of the team plus two spares. One of the spares would be for Hannah while the other would be a backup in case one of the others was broken.

There were other issues to contend with as well but there was little to be done about them then and not much sense relating them now.

The last preparation was to draw a chalk circle of the proper circumference in the middle of the floor. It simply wouldn’t do for a team member not to know where they could safely stand during the transition.

Natasha arrived as I was finishing up, “would you like some help, Matt?”

I nodded and gave her some directions then I checked my watch. It was 0715hrs local time. I had just enough time to write up some frag orders for the mission. I consulted with Natasha on the expertise of the various team members as I wrote up the roster. No doubt the mission commander would change things to suite themselves once the mission was underway. I was fine with that. The goal here was to provide a basic framework to start with so that they went over semi-organized. Fortunately, most of them had worked together before. Nemesis was a bit of a wild card so I put her directly under Kolya’s control. Even from my brief encounter with the man, I was confident he could handle the assassin.

Natasha did not refrain from relating her distaste that Nemesis was even being included.

I wasn’t entirely comfortable with it myself. Rescue mission or no, if we had been within my jurisdiction, I would have arrested her. As it was, including her felt like a moral compromise that I was uncomfortable with, at the very least.

To be honest, I tried to exclude Natasha from the mission roster. I made some frail excuse about needing her back in the real world with me to operate the apparatus. She had none of it and insisted on being included. Hannah was her friend and she would do what she could to help. Despite my objections, I admired her courage and so relented.

About ten minutes prior to the mission brief, everyone started filing in. Once everyone was present, I started in, explaining in detail the operation of the beacons and being careful to ensure that everyone understood that this was an all or nothing, one time thing. They were going over together and they would also come home together. None of them looked pleased when I mentioned that I could and would be monitoring their vitals. If one of them looked to be in critical distress, I would be aborting the mission. There would be no macho, “go on without me, chief!” type of heroics on this one. Had the energy resources allowed for multiple transits I would have been more inclined to allow such sentimentalities.

Once they understood they were in this together, I began to explain to them what to expect on the other side. It wasn’t like I could look through a window and tell them what the weather was going to be like. The most basic laws were different where they were going. Normally one observes and then forms perceptions. Over there, they would form perceptions and then observe them. It was probably a good thing that I wasn’t going over. I didn’t really want to see a fey creature as a mathematical equation given form. Although it is likely I would actually perceive them as types of energy and mass.

One of the more difficult concepts to relay was the fact that time was also a matter of perception and geography. It is possible that someone with a mind like mine would be able to move about in alarming ways over there. Unfortunately, I had to be concerned with moving the rescue party from here to there and back again. Once over there, they would be on their own when it came to finding their way.

With the mission briefing done, I had them set up in the staging area. They knelt down and formed a circle with weapons pointed outward. Certain that they were all well within the designated safety zone, I started the sequence that would send them over, muttering obscure equations to myself as I did so.

The usual lightshow began as lightning cracked around the team. They had been warned about this but still there were signs of apprehension on their faces. The machinery around me began to hum and throb rhythmically.

Then something unexpected happened.

Sebastian walked in. He must have seen the electrical activity and assumed that those in the middle of it were in some sort of danger. Bravely, if recklessly he dived in as though to knock someone else free from the area.

“No! Wait!”

But it was already too late.

They were gone to the world of the fey.

Cybermancer wrote:Natasha did not refrain from relating her distaste that Nemesis was even being included.

I wasn’t entirely comfortable with it myself. Rescue mission or no, if we had been within my jurisdiction, I would have arrested her. As it was, including her felt like a moral compromise that I was uncomfortable with, at the very least.

Aw...

Did playing with me make you feel dirty, Cyber?

Nemesis wrote:Did playing with me make you feel dirty, Cyber?

Are you trying to flirt or be ominous?

Either way, she's playing mind games that I'm not interested in.