(Disclaimers in the prologue)
"How long?"
The man's snapped instruction left Mercury in no doubt that the game was over, here in the complex. The loss of their weapon, the barrier over the doorway, the panic in the man's voice all indicated that they were no longer in a position to confront their foes. The former specialist fumbled as he configured the final module, haste hindering his nimble fingers along with anger. They were Transient beings! Time's Transients! A handful of agents should never be able to stand in their way!
"A few minutes," he replied, preparing himself for the demand that it should be sooner. How could it be sooner? He had only one pair of hands, and a certain amount of ground to cover. It wasn't as though he could simply wave a wand and ...
"Very well. I can hold them off until then."
The man took up a position several paces into the room, looking through the barely transparent blue field. Unable to spare time and thought to defences, Mercury got back to work.
~~~
Silver walked alongside Steel as they approached the translucent blue barrier. Despite his recent freezing and whatever else he had undergone, the Operator seemed in remarkably good shape. Even his tousled hair, dirt-streaked face and torn shirt gave him a roguish rather than a defeated appearance, certainly one that Jet and Sapphire would no doubt find stimulating.
Silver frowned at the direction his thoughts took. They were highly inappropriate and probably misplaced. The trouble was, he had always been envious of Steel, however laughable that might seem on the surface. Silver was smooth where Steel was roughened. He spoke with charm when Steel sometimes struggled to form a civil sentence. In all departments that should have mattered, Silver was the better prospect, and yet for some reason Steel remained the focus of Sapphire's deepest feelings.
Jet hadn't been untouched by the taciturn agent's magnetism, either. And for some reason, that thought had now become intolerable. Damn it, concentrate! he insisted silently. Silver bit his lip and asked himself, not for the first time, what it was about Steel that brought out the very worst in him.
Before they reached the Transient blockade, Silver reached and tugged his companion to a halt. There was something he had to say.
"Steel, I don't know the ins and outs of what you and Sapphire have experienced here ..." He watched Steel's face carefully as he spoke, hoping for the glimpse of an expression which may begin to fill in the gaps. Steel remained neutral though, his eyes waiting for Silver to continue. After a few seconds, the specialist realised he had tailed off and made his scrutiny rather obvious. He coughed to cover his embarrassment and went on.
"Anyway ... I know that you must believe I let you down very badly by giving you that faulty device in the café. You and Sapphire must have felt terribly betrayed by my actions."
To Silver's bewilderment, Steel smiled grimly and looked down at his feet.
"You'd be surprised, Silver, but it had actually slipped my mind up until now."
"Slipped your mind?" Silver felt strangely offended. "But it was my fault that you -"
"All right, it was your fault. Now you can either explain yourself if you feel you must, or we can get on with investigating this barrier. Which is it?"
Steel's experiences had clearly done nothing to improve his patience. Silver almost smiled in welcome, and told his colleague with the minimal verbosity he could manage exactly what had happened with Mercury, on the Hub. When he had finished, Steel surprised him further by wincing, shaking his head in sympathy and reaching an abrupt hand to tap Silver on the arm in condolence.
"I see. I'm sorry." Steel fell silent and turned away to examine the doorway. Once again, Silver wondered what a glimpse into the workings of his colleague's mind might offer. Then another of his favoured Earth expressions popped into his head.
Be careful what you wish for ...
~~~
Leaving Jet with the fully conscious but immobile Diamond, Sapphire was drawn to her partner's side. Pausing at the corner, however, she saw Steel in some kind of exchange with Silver. She was quite unable to help herself as she listened in and heard Silver's explanation for the real events in the café, nor could she prevent the smile at Steel's awkward attempt at comfort.
When the two men turned back to the glowing doorway, Steel's voice sounded in her head and she jumped in momentary alarm, so unexpected was the sound.
[Are you going to gawp all day or will you come and give us a hand?]
The words were for her only; Silver was blissfully unaware of the communication. Yet Sapphire's cheeks coloured slightly as she moved forward. Steel met her eyes briefly, twinkling with one-upmanship, but the rush of delight which Sapphire felt was dampened immediately by the burden of duty. There was still so much to do and she was so tired and so broken; she needed quiet time to think, not another rushed showdown with their enemies.
Silver's voice broke in to her gloom.
"Ah, Sapphire," he said in a low voice. "Did I tell you how lovely it is to see you in one piece, or did we take it as read?"
She arched her eyebrows at Silver, relieved to hear such familiar sweet-talk. This was definitely no usurper.
"Silver," came Steel's predictably warning tone.
"As read. Right." Sapphire found herself sharing a smile again with her old friend, but wasn't prepared for the rush of pain which enveloped Steel as she did. Her partner pushed it to one side immediately, and by his face he regretted his reaction.
What horrors had they shown him?
"I can't do a thing with this," Silver was continuing. "It isn't a machine. It has no circuitry, no components. It's just force, pure Transient force. I couldn't break through this in a month of Sundays." Sapphire watched Steel frown at the news, but Silver obviously mistook the reaction. "Oh, just an Earth expression. Means a long, long time."
Sapphire considered their options. "Nitro?" she suggested to her partner.
Steel shook his head vehemently. " For a start, I'd consider anything before asking him to touch Transient power again. For seconds, he won't be as strong as the leader and Mercury combined. No, I don't think there is any way through this doorway for us."
"We have to stop them!" Silver protested. "We have to try!"
"And we will," Steel agreed. "I want to know whether this barrier covers the doorway alone or the whole room."
~~~
Lead had remained silent on the way to Sapphire's cell, but as soon as he had hoisted the comatose Topaz over his shoulder and turned to make his way back to the group, the giant had started to talk.
"A hundred years, eh?" was his opening gambit. Nitro wondered whether his colleagues would ever lose this fascination with his undercover tenure.
"A hundred years," he agreed, matching his pace to the slower speed Lead now managed. "Right up until about an hour ago." Memories of atrocities committed during his hundred years of Transience were already shouting to make themselves heard. Nitro wanted so much to forget.
"So you were on their side, when Sapphire and Steel were brought here?"
Now the real questions started. "Yes. I was still Transient when they arrived," admitted Nitro.
"Want to tell me what they did to them?"
'They'. Not 'you', but 'they'. Nitro wasn't sure he deserved that much. "I don't think it's for me to say," he replied awkwardly. "It would feel like ... gossip." Seeing that his companion was far from satisfied with this response, he went on, "The Transient leader is skilled with mind games. He applied this skill to our friends."
Lead was silent for a moment. "In that case," he eventually replied, "you're absolutely right. It is none of my business." Pausing in the passage to hoist Topaz into a more comfortable position, he added, "And it makes me wish I could stay, because I want to be the one to destroy that monster."
~~~
Over the last few days, Sapphire had become an expert in how to sense Transient taint. She now walked the perimeter of the chamber, along the wall of the corridor, into the room next door. On no occasion did she sense the continuation of the doorway's barrier. When assured by her findings, she turned and lifted her head to see Steel ready for her report.
"Only the doorway," she said.
Steel nodded his understanding. "We can port in," he stated.
Ready for this suggestion, Sapphire played devil's advocate. "This won't be like Mullrine's house," she reminded her partner. "We aren't the only ones versed in extra-dimensional travel, here." She hurried after Steel as he led the way back to Diamond. "And we're both exhausted. It will be dangerous."
"I know."
"And what are we going to do when we're inside? Tell them to stop or you'll have to arrest them? Steel, we need some kind of strategy!"
Steel spun suddenly, his face radiating determination. Sapphire stopped just short of running into him and regarded him cautiously. Amazingly, her partner smiled and arched his brows in that helpless expression that few others had ever seen.
"I know. It's forming. I'm getting there." Steel drew a shaking breath. "I have missed you," he murmured, so low that only she could hear.
Sapphire had already opened her mouth to speak further, but she clamped her lips shut again. Steel held her gaze for a moment longer before dropping his eyes against some hidden pain and turning away. He was approaching their floored colleague by the time Sapphire whispered her reciprocation.
~~~
For days his cycle had consisted of extended periods of intensive work punctuated by snatched rests. Mercury stood still for a moment after the final module was complete, staring unseeingly at his work, unable to comprehend that it was complete. He let his eyes close and watched equations play over the shuttered lids, confirming his calculations, then he examined his circuitry again.
One check. Another. The man would allow no time to test, so he had to verify his work right now. Mercury quickly confirmed that the circuitry of the gateway provided exactly the functionality which had been embedded within the travel set. There was no problem that he could see.
"It's done." His voice sounded strained in the confines of the working chamber.
The man left his post at the doorway and strode up to the gateway. "Is it active?" he asked, sweeping his gaze greedily over the machine.
Mercury waved a hand over a sensor and smiled as light flickered through cables and across webs of spun fibre. "It is now," he confirmed, pride creeping into his tone. The losses may have been extensive but the goal had been achieved. No more restrictions. Nothing would stop them now. He stepped on to the plinth, admiring his creation. "I don't think I'll look any different when I step out the other side, but I know I'll be different up here!" He tapped the side of his head playfully and drew a deep breath, preparing for his moment.
A hand dropped heavily on to his shoulder, though when he spun around the man remained several paces away. His leader's head shook in denial.
"It should be me," the Transient insisted, and motioned Mercury to move out of the way.
~~~
Nitro guided Lead back to the small group to find all his colleagues in conference around Diamond. A space was cleared next to the paralysed empath as he drew near and Lead deposited Topaz nearby, taking care that her frozen form did not touch any of the others. Nothing was said to the giant as he settled between the two bodies. Sharing plans with him would no longer serve a purpose.
Lead met Sapphire's eyes, then Steel's. "Good luck," he offered, then reached a hand to hold on to Topaz's shoulder and nodded at Diamond. Mute for the time being, Diamond broadcast his own best wishes, then drew on his power. The three faded quickly. As they left, Nitro wondered how it would feel when it was his turn to return to the Hub. Before, travelling homeward was like snapping a stretched elastic band back into its normal state. Would he feel that way again?
But there was still a job to do. Nitro turned to Steel in readiness.
"We could do with a diagram of the room," the Operator said.
"Allow me," Silver offered, fishing his laser pen out of a pocket and waving his hand over an imaginary flat surface. He activated the pen and drew the dimensions of the room in thin air, showing the door.
"Good. Where is the machine?" asked Steel. Nitro pointed and Silver drew it in. "Anything else?"
"Mercury's work bench is in this corner." Nitro pointed again. "Obviously I can't tell you where the two Transients will be."
Steel nodded, then looked around, his gaze taking in the remainder of their group. Nitro put aside his difficulties in adjusting, and watched Steel's face.
"Our target is the gateway," the agent announced. "Without it the Transients can only escape back into the past, and once there they no longer have the means to return to the present." Nitro nodded in agreement, though all eyes were on Steel. "Unfortunately, the two in there are stronger than all of us combined, so we are going to use the only advantage we have left. Numbers." Nitro's heart began to beat a little faster as he realised that the end game was upon them. "We all have skills and we're about to make them count. We're going to play a game of distractions."
~~~
As he arrived in the central chamber on the Hub, Lead glanced at Diamond to see the empath's eyes already glassy with power. The authority figures were no doubt desperate for a status report. The few agents who had remained on hand for news backed away at his warning gesture and he picked Topaz up. There was only one place suitable for her now.
Lead plodded out of the chamber and began to make his way to the cells.
~~~
Sapphire arrived right on the button, Jet fading into view within arm's reach. She looked immediately to the gateway in the diagonally opposite corner, where it faced the door. The Transient leader was on the plinth, apparently about to step through its arch. Mercury stood beside the device. Even as the former specialist cried out a warning to his associate, Sapphire linked her capacity for power with her fellow empath, and she and Jet focused a time-loop local to the plinth. In quick rotation, the man took a step under the arch before being jerked back to his starting position.
It wouldn't hold a Transient being for long, but hopefully it wouldn't need to.
Mercury was already responding to this assault. He had not been close enough to his leader to be included in the loop, and was now stepping out from behind the device to counter-attack. Sapphire knew she and Jet were vulnerable right now, as they maintained the loop. She ignored the blue fire in the former specialist's eyes and hoped that Silver would be similarly accurate in his port.
He was.
Less accustomed to using the skill, Silver rocked slightly as he appeared in the chamber, finding his feet and steadying himself against the wall. He stepped up to the gateway and attracted Mercury's attention just before the Transient reached Sapphire.
"Ah, Mercury, I was hoping to see you again." There was a harsh strain in Silver's tone and Sapphire understood her friend's trepidation as he came face to face once more with the man who had violated his mind. "This gateway. Do tell me, as one Technician to another - how does it work?" Mercury had already put aside the empaths for the more immediate concern and stalked back to the machine, and to his unwelcome visitor. "For instance," Silver continued, easing himself around the plinth to keep the maximum distance between them. "What does this connector do?"
The part of her mind which was not preoccupied with the time-loop watched as Silver whipped a finger out and tugged the connector free. Mercury scrambled to retrieve and reconnect it as Silver continued to dance around the plinth.
She would have smiled in satisfaction, but the loop was already becoming weakened and the effort to maintain it was beginning to tire her. Trapping a Transient was not the same as easier prey. She shot a glance over at Jet and saw that her companion was similarly struggling.
Hurry ...
Nitro's turn. The specialist materialised in front of the door. The ports were becoming more dangerous, Sapphire acknowledged, so limited was the space available to them. Trust Steel to allow himself to port last, when the danger was greatest. She watched as Nitro approached the gateway carefully, timing his steps to arrive alongside Silver, with Mercury still chasing.
Nitro raised his hands, just as the loop became too much to hold on to. As Sapphire screwed her face up with effort, he put his talented fingers to good use.
He froze the machine.
First one module, then another frosted over. Ice crept along connectors, glittering in the harsh, unnatural light. As the metal and fibres expanded and contracted, the air was filled with an eerie creaking. Mercury's attention was wrenched away from the two agents and the Transient looked at his creation with horror.
The time-loop was no longer needed. The field across the gateway was itself frozen, capturing the Transient leader in its confines. Exhausted, Sapphire let the power go, and she caught at Jet as her companion did the same. The two empaths supported each other, their eyes now fully observing this final play.
Transient blue fired up again in Mercury's eyes. He turned from the frozen machinery before him and rounded on Nitro and Silver.
"Traitor!" he accused his former colleague, unaware of the irony in his challenge. "You can freeze the gateway but all you'll do is postpone the inevitable!" Silver tried to skip away and give Nitro the room to avoid Mercury's attack, but the swipe from the diminutive turncoat's arm knocked Nitro half way to the door. The specialist lay still where he landed and Sapphire's eyes turned back to Silver, who was already backing away from the Transient.
Backing right into the place where ...
Steel materialised a second early and grasped Silver's shoulders. In other circumstances Sapphire would have laughed at the way the Technician yelped at this unexpected touch. Firmly pushing Silver aside, Steel faced Mercury. If anything, the blue in the Transient's eyes burned more fiercely still.
It was no good. Mercury stood between Steel and the device. Sapphire watched her partner shifting his gaze between the frozen gateway and their enemy, wondering how the final part of the plan would be possible.
Then suddenly, the light bulb blinked out for a couple of seconds.
When light returned to the chamber, they were all looking about in confusion except Silver, whose expression told Sapphire exactly who had instigated the momentary blackout. Clever. Steel, meanwhile, had used the time bought for him by his colleague and stepped over to the gateway. Sapphire watched as her partner set his jaw in determination and drew his fist backwards. She knew he was strong, just as she now knew that a secret part of her feared that strength. But would he be strong enough to finish the job?
Mercury had returned his attention to the gateway as Steel prepared. When her partner's punch exploded outwards from his body, the Transient screamed in denial. The super-frozen structure shattered under the force of the blow, components and cables splintering apart. As the gateway was destroyed, the field which had trapped the Transient leader exploded in an energy surge. Sapphire saw the man fade from view, just as the earlier victims of the original box had done. As the echoes of the destruction faded around the room, the last thing that Sapphire became aware of was a stinging pain in her hand. She glanced down at it curiously before realising it wasn't her own fist which was the source of the pain. She stepped away from Jet and over to Steel. Blood covered her partner's knuckles, and he wiped it distractedly on the fabric of his already ruined shirt.
He had done it. They had all done it. The gateway was destroyed.
"You will die for that."
Mercury. There was still Mercury. The Transient stepped over the wreckage of his master work and threatened Steel, madness mixing with the power in his eyes.
"Worth it," Steel responded sincerely. Her partner made no attempt to evade the Transient's steady approach. Sapphire felt herself sharing her terror, transmitting to Steel a fundamental despair that things should finish like this.
"Mercury!"
It seemed that there were still distractions in store. Silver had armed himself with one of Mercury's tools, a probe of slim, metallic design. The Transient spun around and faced the Technician, sneering in derision as he noted the puny weapon. Silver appeared unperturbed and, as though about to present a conjuring trick to a captivated audience, he whipped out a handkerchief and quickly buffed the metal, then held it vertically and pressed it between the flat of his palms into what seemed like nothing. Just as Mercury's patience seemed to snap and the Transient began to advance on her old friend, Sapphire watched Silver bring his cupped hands to his mouth and blow, spraying a fine metallic dust into Mercury's face. The turncoat scraped at his eyes, spinning away.
"Steel!" Sapphire shouted and crossed hurriedly to her partner's side. It was where she belonged. She wondered what might resolve this stalemate; after all, they had successfully completed the plan they had rapidly concocted. The gateway was gone. Further victories were a bonus.
Then she had her answer.
A groaning from beside the doorway reminded her of the fallen Nitro. Sapphire saw him pick himself up and rub at his shoulder in discomfort, before he took note of the blinded Mercury. Staggering slightly, Nitro made his way across the room, a finger stretched before him. As Mercury raised his head and peered through watering eyes at the sound of footsteps, Nitro reached forward and made a single contact with the tip of his finger. There was a small flash, and Mercury crumpled to the floor.
Silence pervaded the battleground for a moment. It was Silver who finally asked the question.
"What did you do to him?"
Nitro turned to survey them all in turn, his slumped shoulders reminding Sapphire that she wasn't the only one desperate for rest. "I made him forget. Just like I forgot, a hundred years ago. Only with Mercury, I froze his newly acquired memories. The ones which told him how to use Transient power."
"Ingenious," Silver returned, impressed.
"We need to get him back to the Hub quickly," ordered Steel, his eyes meeting Jet's and asking for help. As the empath moved to Mercury's side, Sapphire noted that Silver went immediately to assist her. This time the ripple of embarrassed envy was not hers alone, and she looked with shock to see Steel turning to her with the same expression.
"What happened to the leader?" Nitro was asking. "Is he destroyed?"
Silver looked up from Mercury's form and shook his head. "No. My guess is that Mercury configured the gateway a little bit too exactly like the travel set. It was still configured for the Triassic period. Oh, it wouldn't have mattered, if they'd stepped through it - they could have gone wherever and whenever they wanted from there. But as the field was destroyed without the Transient completing his step through the arch, it snapped to its default location, taking him with it."
"So he's trapped in the past again," Steel suggested.
"Let's hope so," returned Silver, before fading out of the chamber with Jet and Mercury.
"Time to go .. home," Nitro suggested. Sapphire caught his hesitation and sympathised, watching him fade.
Then she was alone with Steel, for the first time since their abduction from the café.
Her partner busied himself with dragging a toe through the shattered remains of the gateway as though looking for something. His uncomfortable body language cried out with uncertainty. Sapphire searched for the right words, the words which would reassure both of them that it was over, that they were together again, that nothing had changed.
But things had changed. Things would probably never be the same, ever again.
~~~~~~~
There is also an Epilogue
Back to Transients, by Zircon
Back to EvA's Fanfic Page