-Chapter 10

 

            Waiting, of course, was the last thing on Tiffany’s mind at this point.  Waiting, of all things!  She and Joey were too busy running from Olivia to care about what they might be doing if they managed to escape her.  At the time they had entered this building, the thought had almost evaporated from Tiffany’s mind.

            The time they had entered this building had been a mere two or three minutes ago, but for all the action that had passed during those minutes, that time had seemed much longer to Joey and Tiffany.  It had begun, of course, with Olivia’s surprise ambush.  Then she had hurt Yoshata…and shortly after that, she had begun her chase after Joey and Tiffany.  They had run through the front doors of the T.T.P. building.  That was where things had started to become more and more chaotic.

            With the opinions (although not the thoughts) of Joey, Tiffany, and Olivia aside, it had happened like this:

 

            Tiffany led Joey to the front doors of the building, not looking back at either Olivia (who wasn’t too far behind them) or Yoshata (who they were sure had already taken her directions).  Olivia chased them from what couldn’t be very far behind, trying to plot out their next moves so she could counter them.  The two in front ran to the front doors and pushed them open, then reached the second set of doors—the ones that made the actual entrance to the building—and pushed them open.  Their rushing entrance had given a surprise to the workers of the building that was not exactly pleasant.

            As they pushed the front doors open and sprinted inside, many of the workers in front of the doors and behind the entrance registration began to instantly notice what was happening.  Some began to call for them to stop (but to no success).  Others hadn’t realized what the situation was until they saw Olivia following the two blue Yoshies.  And practically all of the workers on the entrance floor began to call for security the moment they saw the periwinkle Yoshi.  She had no weapons, but from the look on her face it seemed to not matter; she wanted to stop the two blue Yoshies in front of her just as the workers wanted to stop her.

            Tiffany, thinking as logically as she could under these drastic circumstances, was telling herself that these people would believe their story (And if they don’t, no one will, she thought), but only when they were out of danger.  We’ll have to get rid of Olivia first.  Then, realizing that it wouldn’t help if this thought was just in her mind, she told Joey.  “…Once we’ve done that, we can get Yoshata, get them to stop Olivia, and get you out of here for good,” she finished.  Joey was relieved, even given the knowledge of what was happening.  For it just seemed fair that he, Yoshata, and Tiffany should live “happily ever after” after going through all of this.  Tiffany believed something very similar to that.  But their hopes would not stop Olivia here, nor would they get rid of her later, if they were even to get that far.

            “Stop, you can’t go through here” was what many of the observers had generally said.  But shouting and calling for security was the most any of them did about this; they had heard enough about how dangerous this Olivia lady was, as well as what she had done.  Getting in her way, as they believed, was just a good way to get someone badly hurt.  Was she insane?  No, she was too smart when hunting the others down—and people who have gone mad don’t usually act smart, right?

            The entrance floor the Time Travel Project building was somewhat limited in size, due to the limitations of the front section of the building in between the two circumscribing towers.  There were important reasons for this, but those reasons will not be discussed just yet.  The entrance floor was not rectangular as the building’s front section was; rather, it was inscribed by curved corners to make it look elliptical.  Near the corners of the entrance floor, just to the sides of the curved corners, were two stairways going to the next floor.  Joey and Tiffany were running up the stairway on the right corner, and Olivia was just about to climb up after them.

            The second floor—and almost every floor after it, for that matter—was less intricate than the entrance floor.  Built as a long walkway bordering the rectangular structure of the building’s interior, it had a large rectangular gap in its center where it dropped to the entrance floor.  There was no gap above it, but only ceiling; the second floor was designed as a walkway to contain many elevators, which together provided easy transportation for workers to the upper and lower floors of the building.  Right now, that was where Joey and Tiffany were.

 

            Right now, that was where Joey and Tiffany were.  And they were running to the right in their attempt to escape Olivia.  From their current direction at the top of the stairs, this was leading them to the bottom-right corner of the building on the second floor’s walkway.  What they planned to do was get far enough from Olivia to enter an elevator and close it before she could follow.  And that might be difficult considering our newest guests, though Tiffany, finally looking back.

            She was paying little attention to Olivia; she had done that too much for a large part of their whole little adventure.  What she was concerned about was the group of security Yoshies that were almost swarming onto the second floor.  Already there were groups running up the stairs, holding their de-neuron guns, while others were coming out of elevators on the second floor.  Some, she noticed, were standing at the bottom, readying their guns.  Not good was all she took the time to think.  Then she grabbed Joey by the shoulders, pushed him down to the marble floor, and slid him in the direction of the walkway’s upcoming corner.

            It worked pretty well; Joey had little friction on the slippery floor, and the short glass siding on the walkway kept him protected from de-neuron blasts.  So Tiffany did the same, taking a running start and sliding feet-first to the corner.  Curiously, many of those watching just stepped to the side as they slid through.  They must not care about having any involvement in this weird chase anymore, she thought.  But that’s no problem for me.

            Behind them, Olivia had a few problems of her own.  Green flashes were going off just below her, and security guards were coming just behind her and around her.  So, following the example of the two in front of her, she took a running start and slid across the walkway.  She had half-expected several of the workers to all attack her at once—they, of all people, must have known who she was; she was, in fact, known by a lot of the residents in this city for what she had done recently—but then her mind told her that none of them wanted to get in her way and get hurt.  That’s why they didn’t do anything when I came in…a good decision for them to make right now, too.  And the other reason they aren’t going to do anything…well….

            Well, that was because they were all jumping and ducking for cover as the security Yoshies fired their paralyzing guns.  And in addition to giving Olivia a safe pathway to escape on, this singled out the guards so she could easily notice them.  So as long as she could outmove the dumb guards behind her (as well as those entering from the elevators around her), her only real task would be getting Joey and his idiot daughter before they escaped to wherever they were headed.

            …And, on that thought, where were they headed?

 

            Around that time, Yoshata was still busy lifting the red SkyCar higher and higher.  The highest speed it could go elevate at was pretty good, but she was sure that the vehicle’s designers could have made improvements; despite the lifting speed, she was barely even half the building’s height in altitude right now…and there were those continuous blackouts with the power.  Every time the car’s system sparked out, the SkyCar would take a sudden stop and almost start to fall, and it worried her enough to make her nerves seriously rush every time it happened.  But, just before the SkyCar could drop, the system would kick back in and she’d continue to go back up.  Why didn’t Tiffany know about this when she told me to drive this thing? she thought franticly.  I’ll end up dying before I get to the roof!  Then she opened the loose door a tiny bit and peeked out.  And that’ll be a long fall….

            She looked back up, made sure her seat belt was still fastened as tightly as it could be (I would not want to fall out of this door, that would be a very long fall), and looked to the right, out the window opposite her.  There was the main wall of the skyscraper…the wall of the rectangular part where the two towers intersected.  She would have to get there soon.  Tiffany and Joey might be close to there now, she thought to herself, almost as a hope rather than a guess.  I’ve gotta hurry.

            And then the thought repeated in her head: And that’ll be a long fall….

 

            When the saw the doors to the elevator in front of them open, Joey and Tiffany hoped desperately that there would be no guards there.  They had stopped sliding on the marble walkway for the last few yards between there and the corner of the walkway, and they were now crawling quickly to avoid gunfire, guards, and Olivia.  They had received a blessing when they found that many of the guards were mainly after Olivia, although there were still some who had started to chase after them.  One guard had briefly grabbed Tiffany’s ankle a minute ago, but she and Joey had kicked him out of the way so they could make their escape.  They didn’t know how Olivia was faring with the security, but they didn’t care; right now, all that mattered was the elevator.

            What they saw was yet another blessing: the elevator was empty, save for a single worker coming down from one of the upper floors.  “Now’s our chance!” she cried to Joey, straining to be louder than the tumultuous noise below them and pointing to the elevator.  “Keep crawling, quickly!”

            He didn’t want to keep crawling, but did anyway.  His knees were already aching and numb at the same time, and he could barely even hear himself talk.  Below him, on the entrance floor, guards were shooting and workers were jumping down for cover—he was sure at least some of them were screaming—while on this floor, green flashes from de-neuron guns were blasting everywhere and their noises were sounding; and all around him, elevators were opening and the sounding of guards running out was everywhere.  At least we’ll just have elevator music when we get there, he thought, adrenaline beginning to rush.

            Tiffany didn’t take the time to look back.  Not now, anyway; they could do that in the temporary safety of the elevator in front of them.  And, like the case was for Joey, the knees on which she was crawling were becoming another annoyance to her.  So I guess we’re close enough…let’s get up and run for it.  It was a daring thought, but they were too close to lose much, right?

            “Get up and run!” she shouted, and she and Joey did just that.  After running the final five feet, they jumped into the elevator right as its double doors began closing.  Sitting on the elevator floor and facing the outside, the two of them watched with great relief as Olivia escaped the frantic crowd only a moment too late to get them.  The future father and future daughter let out a sigh together and began to laugh with utter relief.

            That was when they realized—again, at the same time—that the elevator had begun moving and that they hadn’t even touched a button.  “Uh oh,” Joey remarked.

            “…Oh boy,” began Tiffany, and let out another quick sigh.  This one, of course, was a sigh of frustration.  “Someone’s getting a surprise when these doors open.”

            “Yeah,” agreed Joey, and he looked at the floor number.  “On the S Floor.”

            “Storage,” Tiffany said, not knowing if to herself or to Joey.  “So we have a long way to go to get to the roof and Yoshata.  Or to one of the upper floors and the people who can help us.”

            “…And I assume we can’t just use the elevator again?”

            “Don’t be dumb.  Olivia would be our next visitor if that happened, and I don’t think we’d do well to surprise her.”

            “…I thought it would be something like that.”

            Almost to the bottom; they had just passed by the entrance floor and were headed to the storage floor.

            “…Has anything been easy for us this whole time, Tiff?”

            “Well, we’ve had some pretty enjoyable luxuries for most of the time, and we’ve always managed to get you away from Olivia…so, believe it or not, I’d say that she would be the one who’s having the worst experience here.

 

            If only Olivia knew that someone else was pitying her…that might have given her a small shot of confidence.  But she didn’t know.  Nor would she believe it if she was told.  Right now, it was all revolving around her.  All around her and whether she would make it to another elevator in time to escape the guards.

            Ahead of her, Joey and his daughter (Tiffany, who has brought me more grief through all this than I could even imagine) had jumped through the doors of an elevator just before it had begun to move.  They had made it.  They always made it, and right now, they were lying on the floor of the elevator and laughing, and she could swear that they were laughing at her.  But no matter; it would all be over soon, that was what she believed.  And she had a plan to deal with the guards running up behind her.

            And fortunately for Olivia, their minds were inferior to hers…at least as far as quick strategizing went.  She already had several situations covered.  Now she was ready.

            Her first move was to stop in her place, her hands and knees to the floor.  Although to her this move seemed deliberate enough to give her away, those running behind her didn’t suspect a thing; it may have been all the noise in the building, but Olivia wasn’t sure.  They rushed up to her, holding up the green-black guns in their hands.  This was their first mistake.

            Before they could secure their positions, the periwinkle Yoshi reached behind her, snatched a de-neuron gun from the hand of one guard, then set it and fired.  Without even looking behind her back, she had temporarily paralyzed five of the guards standing behind her.  She jumped up, new energy continuing to jump up as her heart beated, and looked back.  They were preparing their guns to shoot back.  But, as it would be apparent, Olivia would not let them.  I wonder how many of them would be getting fired if I let this project exist? was her thought as she fired away.  The next front row of security guards fell to the ground, unable to move.  Her shots had been exactly where they were supposed to be.

            Yet she had still failed in stopping two young members of a (would-be) future family and their bodyguard this whole time.  At this confusing time, it made no sense to her.

            But the truth was what she should have known long before now: Tiffany had been just as determined as she had been.

 

            The next mistake the guards made was their decision to continue running after Olivia.  When Olivia noticed their decision, she readied her de-neuron gun and shot again at the front row.  Then she got down and slid across the floor to avoid being shot from the guards below.  While she was doing that, she would fire at the next front row.  No one could get her; she was too fast and too determined.

             She looked onward for a brief moment as she rounded the corner.  There’s an elevator! her mind cried out.  And yes: just ahead was an opening elevator.  Some unknowing worker had just walked out, and he had also joined the large group of workers hiding for cover on the ground.

            There was something else she noticed, as well.  As she looked to her right—that, of course, was the side where the walkway’s siding was and where the second floor fell a short way to the first—she noticed that this side of the building’s interior was safer from gunfire.  In other words, the wall above the walkway’s siding came closer to the side rail, creating a somewhat narrow passage.  I can stand up and run here, she thought.  And following that notion, she got up and ran to the open doors of the elevator ahead.

 

            Not all went as planned—she had paid less attention to the guards behind her and ended up getting de-neuroned in her left arm—but she did make it into the elevator.  And things still weren’t perfect by that time, either.  Because when she did finally enter the elevator, about five or six security guards were attempting to do the same thing.

            She could get them pretty easily.  But another problem had arisen in her head as she was shooting away.  The problem was whether she should follow Joey and Tiffany to the undoubtedly unsafe storage floor or wait for them in a safer place.  I know where they went, she thought quickly as she shot off the last of the guards; the S button was sending off a flare in her mind.

            But I also know where they’re headed.

            After their little detour, the two planned to meet Yoshata at the building’s roof.  It was more than loud enough for her to overhear.  And I’m sure that they wouldn’t be planning to trick me at this point in time, she thought.  Her plan seemed perfect.  Almost perfect enough to pay for all that this trip had done to her.  And as an added bonus, it provided an easy way to get rid of Joey.  Things must be starting to look up for me, she thought, and pushed the button to the top floor.  There would surely be an elevator to the top there…and once she got there, this whole thing would be over…it would really all be over.  The thought was putting her arm’s sting out of her mind easily.

 

            For the two on the storage floor, things were almost beginning to look up as well.  Tiffany was now carrying a de-neuron gun in her right hand, and Joey was following her closely.  They were headed for two destinations: the place farthest from the elevator they entered this floor through, and the highest part of this skyscraper.  Of course, to Tiffany, those two places were probably at the same location: the roof.  As long as Yoshata hasn’t been screwing up and the car hasn’t been, either, thought Tiffany, then we can get out of here.

            …But before we do that, we have to get rid of Olivia.

            That thought—the last part, anyway—was the thought that kept bothering her.  It had, to some extent, sat in the back of her head ever since the fateful moment that she appeared on a fall day in the year 2003.

            And here it was now.  Now, where the season was also autumn.  But twenty years were past.  The majority of her time in their adventure was spent here, although recent time for her was in 2003.  A little over a day…that was what it had been.  One day out of the nearly four days that their adventure had lasted.  For Joey, it’s still the third day, thought Tiffany, looking at the blue Yoshi just behind her, just changing to the fourth day.

            She looked at the green-black gun in her hand.  It would come in handy later, if and when they would see Olivia again.  She’ll meet up with us sometime before we get away, she thought, almost angrily.  That’s how it’s always been.  That’s how she is.  But she’s going to end up dying, I’m almost sure of it.  I still don’t want to kill her.  But, sadly, I think she’s going to bring it upon herself.  And if she does, I hope we’ll be ready to give an explanation.  At least I’ll be ready to fight.  She let her eyes wander back to the de-neuron gun.

            She had stolen it from a security guard.  That was when they were back in the elevator; unfortunate guard that he was, he was the one waiting at the doors when she and Joey stepped out.  He had been the only guard around this elevator, since many of the others were either already upstairs or staying down here to guard.  No one had heard him, and in a few seconds Tiffany had de-neuroned his head, forcing him to fall to the ground.  She had kept the gun, and following that, led Joey through the storage floor.

            They didn’t even need to travel half as long as Olivia had to before; they soon found the way out of the long storage hallway and into the giant room containing the power system.  Tiffany and Joey didn’t know this—they could only hope that the coming room would have an elevator and not so many guards—but they did know that they had to get away from Olivia as quickly as possible, and that running into an area with lots of guards would be also be a bad idea.

            There were two Yoshies in guard uniforms just ahead.  Tiffany could see that behind them was a ladder, going down to who-knew-where and marking the end of the storage hallway.  Since we can’t turn back, she thought reluctantly, we’ll have to get these guys out of the way and go to the next room.  She pulled out her de-neuron gun, about to use it again.

            One of the guards had been able to sense their coming, but he was too late.  When he saw the two blue Yoshies step out from the darkness of the hall, he felt the feeling go from his body a second later.  Obviously, the other one noticed this, but he was also late in his reaction.  His mouth only managed to utter “Wait—” before he saw a second green flash.

 

            The sky blue Yoshi in the red SkyCar was becoming impatient as well as nervous.  Yoshata kept thinking to herself, I’m gonna fall down with this car when it fails.  And I’m barely even three fourths of the way to the stupid roof.

            She was almost right.  At approximately seven ninths of the building’s height, she would get pretty badly hurt if the car’s system were to go.  But that hadn’t happened yet…so perhaps it was just slightly malfunctioning and could be easily repaired.  It could be.

            Or maybe not.

            But Joey and Tiffany would be waiting at the top for her.  She was sure of it beyond a shadow of a doubt.  And that, at least, gave her some relief.  So if this doesn’t kill me, I’ll be going home soon, just like Joey.

            She looked out the window on the right side of the SkyCar.  The building’s main wall was passing by, getting very close to the top.

 

            Joey and Tiffany were taking a moment to steal the paralyzed guards’ suits.  The two guards on the floor could only mutter, but Tiffany wasn’t paying attention to whatever they were saying anyway.  She and Joey were busy borrowing and checking out their helmets and de-neuron-proof vests.  These would help if the guards in the next room had lousy aim.  But they will be wearing the same thing, she reminded herself.  So I’ll have to aim well, too.

            After putting on their new protective suits, the two of them climbed down the ladder.  At the bottom was—of course—another door.  Power System Floor, it read.  Warning: Authorized Personnel Only!

            “Yeah, sure,” Tiffany said.  She tried the door.

            Hearing the incomplete click when Tiffany turned the knob, Joey knew what was happening.  “It’s locked,” he said, a touch sadly.

            “Look, I know it’s locked,” snapped Tiffany.  She was getting impatient.  “Lemme check my new vest’s pockets.”

            While Tiffany was searching her pockets for a key or a card key, Joey did the same, dipping his hand into every pocket of the de-neuron-proof vest.  Come on, thought Joey.  There has to be some kind of key in here, in case of emergency or something, right?

            Right.

            Tiffany was the first to find a key.  She pulled out a coded card and slid it through the code lock.  There was a pause, then a beep.  The door made a clicking sound, which probably meant that it was unlocked now.  She reached out her left hand, held her de-neuron gun in her right hand, and opened the door, slowly and softly.

            The door stopped without even having been half a foot open.  Tiffany looked through and almost lost hope when she saw what was in the next room.

            The next room, the Power System room, was enormous and filled with machines that neither Joey nor Tiffany had ever seen.  However, that wasn’t what mattered to them right now.  What mattered was the group of about fifty (it had to be fifty or more, Tiffany and Joey were both sure) uniformed Yoshies patrolling the room.  Each had a de-neuron gun at his side, and all of them were wearing protective vests and helmets like Tiffany and Joey were.  They couldn’t stop them no matter how fast they were.  And where can we run? Tiffany thought, her eyes wandering to every corner of the giant room.

            She drew a few conclusions from what she saw past the half-opened door.  Many of them are on the right side, she mentally noted.  There’s a small path along the left wall.  And what’s that in the small gap at the middle?

            Near the path on the left wall was a group of gates.  Just underneath those gates—it was hard to see the floor behind the guards, but Tiffany managed—were many small conveyor belts.  And on the conveyor belts were small metal boxes coming from another section of the room by a large crane somewhere above them.  She couldn’t see what was behind the gates, but she was a smart girl; she could speculate.  She figured that the material in the boxes came from one of the portals in another part of the room.  It’s fuel from the past, she thought.  They take oil and other resources from the portal, have a machine package them up, and then have another machine secure that package and send it to an area where it can be later used.  I dunno how…but it’s done behind those gates.

            …We can fit behind those gates easily.  And if Joey and I get to what’s behind the gates, we can get sent to another room.  And if we get to that room, we can get to an emergency exit.  And if we do that…get to an elevator…out of here…Joey—

            “—Joey,” she said.  “I know what we have to do.”

            “Go out there and get shot down?”

            “Don’t be an idiot.  I’m serious; we can get to an elevator in no time, we just have to go out there and get to the gates on the left wall.”

            “…And…then get shot down?”

            “Once again, don’t be stupid.  It’ll lead us to an elevator, I’m sure of it.”

            Joey paused for a moment, not knowing what to say.  To believe Tiffany or not to believe Tiffany?  Well, she could beat him in a debate any day…it was obvious.  “Okay,” he said.  “But I’m trusting you on this one, and I don’t think that they’ll be too understanding if they catch us.”

            “They won’t.  But I have to ask you a question.”

            “Hm?”

            “Can you make sure that you keep that hat and that vest on?”

            “…Uh, yes.  Sure.  So why—”

            “—Don’t worry.  Just follow me.”  Tiffany now opened the door fully (but still softly) and stepped outside.  Their outfits kept them hidden to some tiny extent, but they would undoubtedly give themselves away before they reached those gates.  Tiffany was almost positive that it would happen, even if a moment before their getaway.

 

            They walked through, making their best attempts to act inconspicuous.  Tiffany lowered her gun but still kept it in her hand.  Joey stayed behind her, looking down so his face couldn’t be seen.  It’ll give us away so quick, he thought worriedly.  He had no de-neuron gun, so that was one less burden on him.  He probably wouldn’t need one anyway; Tiffany was an excellent shot—for some reason that he had, amazingly, never asked her—and he could be protected by simply standing behind her.  She wanted him protected just as much as he wanted them both to make it.

            Silently making their way through the dangerous crowd, the two of them were already halfway to the gates.  Tiffany clutched her gun tightly, and if she weren’t so concentrated on surviving, she might have thought that she might accidentally fire the gun.  But she maintained control; the gates were so close, and thus the top floor was, too.

            By the time the two of them reached the gates, many of the guards had shifted their positions while patrolling.  Many of them were near the left wall now.  And that wouldn’t be good for Tiffany and Joey’s escape plan.  Soon enough, one of them would surely notice and begin the chain that would turn every guard in their direction.  Not good.

            They were noticed when Tiffany turned back to Joey.  She spoke in a very quiet and very low voice.  “All right,” she began, moving a bit to the side so Joey could see the gates.  “The one closest to us, got it?  I have a feeling this will work.”

            “Now?”

            Tiffany paused.

            Joey raised his head up, and that was what alerted one of the very observant guards.  It was exactly what the security was waiting for, and exactly what Tiffany knew would happen.  But she did her best to act calm.  That pretty much failed.  So, she tried to sound calm…which did work.

            “Yes, now,” she said, her voice now getting faster and louder.  She pulled out her de-neuron gun and backed up to the second gate.

            Sadly for her, this didn’t even stop one quarter of the guards.  Not even for one second.  And firing, as she knew, would do nothing for her except maybe give her a few numb limbs.  So she went to what she was going to do anyway: she ran to the second gate and jumped in, head first, after another metal box.

            As she thought, she received a numb limb.  It was her left leg…but that wouldn’t matter.  Because behind these gates, she and Joey (who she could still see right beside her) were being enclosed in large glasslike spheres with dark rings on their surfaces.  At least they’re big enough to be comfortable, she thought, still trying to relieve herself.  She was sure that Joey was too busy being fascinated to be thinking right now, for the same thing was happening to him.

            Green flashes went off from behind them, but they were now completely protected by this hard, thick layer of glass.  A layer of glass and…and what was the darker material?

            Once the inside of the black material began to light up, it became clear to both of them.

            “Whoa!” shouted Joey, loud enough for Tiffany to faintly hear in her glass orb.  “They’re electromagnets!”

            Interesting, thought Tiffany as she looked at the four metal boxes around her.  They were beginning to rise to the center of the orb.  Like I thought they were.  Switching electromagnets surrounding the glass spheres…they go from positive to negative to balance the metal boxes in the air so that the contents aren’t broken or lost during transfer.  Very interesting…and I think I’m starting to float, too….

            It was true; she and Joey were beginning to rise to the centers of their spheres.

            But what metal do we have on us? thought Tiffany.  Then she realized the answer.  Oh, right.  Parts of the helmets and parts of the vest.  How weird—

            She received a rough interruption when her orb—and Joey’s, too—began rolling forward.  This, from the look of it, was the transfer.  The glass orbs were on tracks that led to the materials’ transfer destination.  It was like a strange roller coaster ride.  But was the ride designed for actual riders?  Probably not, thought Tiffany.  Which makes it all the more interesting when I wonder what I possibly could have been thinking.

            Well…here we go.  Oh well…take a deep breath, Tiff.

            She did.  And just after that, the glass spheres began rolling down steep parallel tracks.  Joey, who was not very entertained with steep hills and roller coasters, hadn’t expected this.  He managed to take in a tiny breath before the glass orbs slid down the tracks.

            To Joey, it felt like any other roller coaster that had some ever-important huge drop—once you go down, you lose your breath but can’t exactly scream or regain your breath…until the drop is over.  To Tiffany, it felt stunningly like time travel.  She had almost completely forgotten about what she and Yoshata had done not long ago, but the glass orb ride quickly reminded her of what it was like.  Just minus the darkness and universe orbs, she thought.

            She looked over to Joey when the drop was over.  He too was levitating in the middle of his glass orb, so the fast-moving glass around him wasn’t touching him.  His eyes were wide open, but he didn’t look like he would throw up; he never really did get too sick after any ride he went on, even if that ride might have freaked him out.  He looked across the tracks to Tiffany with a desperate face.  He didn’t want to have to do that again…but it seemed like the tracks were going up again.

            Suck it up, it should be over soon, thought Tiffany.  The first drop hadn’t been too bad.

            Then came the second drop at the top of the elevation.  Joey had been able to take a deep breath this time, but it evaporated out of him as soon as the glass spheres rolled down again.  This drop hadn’t been long, but it was still longer than the first, and it gave the glass balls even more momentum for traveling along the tracks.

            After catching her runaway breath, Tiffany looked around again.  Looks like Joey dealt with this time a little better, she observed.  And I can’t see much more ahead on the tr—

            The track took another dip downwards, this time with no rising track to warn them.  Fortunately, the drop was much shorter than the others, and now the only part of the transfer track that was left was the set of turns and curves before the stop.

            This shouldn’t take long, thought Tiffany, her hope rising.  I just hope that the guards sent to find us at the emergency exit won’t be waiting for us.  If they should be…well, there’ll hopefully only be a couple.

            And once we’ve taken care of that, there will be two final stops for us before we all return home: the main room, where I can find some people who will understand what’s happened, and the roof.

            We’ve left behind Olivia.  We’ve left behind many of the guards.  Now it should just be me and Joey.  Just the two of us, until we explain our situation, get Olivia dealt with, and get out of here so we’ll never have to return.  All that…in just a short while.

 

            But despite Tiffany’s wishful thinking, Olivia was actually some distance ahead of them.  Her elevator was rising to the highest floor, and there had currently been no stops at any of the floors in between the top and second floors.  To make it quick, things were going well for her, and, as she was convinced, she would be the first to make it to the top of the building.  That way, she thought, I can surprise them just as they’re about to leave.  So close, Tiffany, but you didn’t make it.  And then, it’ll be time to say “bye-bye” to Joey.  I can leave Tiffany and her friend here, I suppose…this won’t even matter to them once I’m finished with Joey.  This’ll be the last surprise they’ll ever get; I’ll make sure of it.

            Again, there was that determination.  And would she really be at the top first?  Would she make it in time to wait for the father she wanted to kill and the daughter that would be carried with him if he died?  The answer for her was clearly yes.  Yet in reality, only time could tell.

            And time is almost up.

 

            The glass orbs were still speeding along the tracks for the last few yards.  Next up was the transfer area.  And after that, some room that would hopefully contain an elevator entrance.

            The transfer area was simple, and it was the same for each pair of tracks: the orbs slowed to an abrupt stop in a square of moderately short walls.  The walls themselves were magnetized, thus causing the orbs’ inner magnets to be attracted to them when the magnets were switched on.  Tiffany and Joey could both see that above each area there was a large mechanical crane.  From the looks of it, the crane used built-in tools to open up the spheres.  After that, it would probably use some others tools it had to pick up the metal boxes full of resources.

            So, Tiffany thought, we’ll have to run to the emergency exit right after the crane opens the spheres, and right before the crane picks us up.  It shouldn’t be too hard….

            And it didn’t seem too bad, not really.  The emergency exit turned out to be just about two yards from the unloading area, and all of the unloading areas led to it.  Unless Joey’s a real idiot, Tiffany thought, he’ll run to the door as soon as he can get out of his orb.

            The orbs were finally slowing down.  Tiffany looked over to Joey before they came to a stop.  She was sure, by looking at him, that he understood what came next.  But hopefully, there wouldn’t be security waiting for them when they got there.  And of course Olivia wouldn’t be there; she just couldn’t be, since they had left her far behind them.

            When the orbs came to a stop in the center of the four magnetized walls, everything in the orbs—the metal containers, Tiffany and Joey, and any other magnetized objects with them—fell to the bottom of the orbs.  Tiffany landed on her feet.  Joey landed on his stomach.  Quickly following the de-magnetization, the crane opened up its front end, and, as Tiffany had predicted, began undoing the hatches on the orbs.

            That took little time.  And when the orbs opened up, Joey and Tiffany ran to the emergency exit, taking what seemed to them like even less time.  They reached the door, but hesitated to open it.  Joey was waiting for Tiffany to turn the handle, and Tiffany was thinking over the situation.  While they were waiting and thinking, the two of them looked back to the unloading area.  The crane had begun picking up the metal packages, while the rest of the opened orb was being lowered down to some other dark section.  It’s probably where the orbs get set up again, she thought.

            But it’s time to focus on this.  It’s time to focus on getting to the people at the top floor and getting to the roof before Olivia does.  It’s behind this door somewhere…I’m just worried about opening it.  And that’s because I don’t know what else is behind this door.

            She turned to Joey.  “Well, are you ready?” she asked him.

            He didn’t reply for a moment, and this caused Tiffany to think that her question had been too vague.  However, he understood and replied.  “…Yeah.  I’m ready when you’re ready.  Let’s hope for the best.”  He nodded to further his confirmation.

            “Okay.”  Tiffany grasped the door’s handle and gave it a twist.  Then she pulled the door open.

            No alarm went off.  And, in a way that almost made it seem anti-climactic, the room behind the door had no guards in it.  No one at all, except them.  Strangely, this gave Tiffany a brief feeling of disappointment; she had been actually expecting someone to be waiting behind this door, and she was wrong this time.  But the disappointment quickly shifted to relief, and finally back to determination.  “We’ve gotta keep going,” she said when they had both entered the room.  “Let’s find that elevator!”

            There was only one other door in the small room.  Tiffany held Joey back.  Then she pulled the door open, still as cautiously as before, and looked inside.

            “It’s a room like this one,” she whispered to Joey.  “And it has an elevator.”

            This relieved Joey.  He was just as ready as she was to get out of here and back home.  He was also ready to take a long nap; for all of this day, he had walked with Tiffany and Yoshata across the city, taking few stops and few better modes of transportation, and when the three of them had reached the hotel, their greeting was with Olivia.  The only sleep I got today was when I had fainted back at the Hotel…when I get home—

            “Don’t get too relieved, though,” continued Tiffany.  “There are two guards in front of that elevator.”

            Joey lost the relief again.  “So…what do we do?”

            “Well, that shouldn’t be much of a problem,” she whispered back.  She pulled out her de-neuron gun and showed him.  “But it’s almost completely empty, and I don’t have a way to recharge it.  So we’ll have to make the most of these last few shots.”

            “Well”—Joey yawned, then continued—“I’m ready when you are.”

            Tiffany didn’t need to reply.  She pushed open the door, aimed carefully, and fired two shots.

            The two guards had been surprised, but not completely disabled.  One had been shot in the head; he was on the floor now.  The other one, however, had only been shot in the right leg.  As he was about to fall over, he pulled out his de-neuron gun and fired at Tiffany.

            Tiffany was unable to dodge this one.  Her own leg was now becoming numb and paralyzed, and she too, was falling to the ground.  But she was holding her own gun at the time, and this time when she fired, she didn’t miss.  The guard who had fallen because of his paralyzed foot was now completely unable to move.  For now.

            “That was…pretty easy,” grumbled Tiffany as she pushed herself up.  She was hopping on her one good foot and looking at Joey.  “Now help me over to those guards; I need a new weapon, and you might want some extra protection as well.”

            He helped her over to the two guards on the floor.  They were both trying to warn them not to go on, but their paralyzed tongues kept them from making any sense. In addition to that, Tiffany and Joey were barely listening to them anyway.  Tiffany grabbed the de-neuron guns from both guards’ hands, took one, and gave the other to Joey.

            “Don’t use it unless you need it,” she warned him as they entered the elevator.  Then she sat down on the floor of the elevator to rest both of her feet.  Joey was about to do the same, but Tiffany stopped him for a moment.  “Push the button for the top floor,” she told him.

            He did, and after a short pause, the elevator began to go up.  Then he sat down for a short period of rest.

            Tiffany and Joey sat at the back wall of the elevator, watching the numbers go up.  They would be in a very vulnerable position if the doors were to open and another group of guards were to come in, but Tiffany assured herself that that wouldn’t happen.  Not in an emergency elevator, of all things.  But then again, those numbers were rising pretty quickly.  We should get ready for what’s waiting at the top floor of the building, she thought.  Then she repeated it to Joey.  He nodded, and then she kept reviewing the situation in her head.

            I don’t know how tight security might be at the top of the building.  I don’t know whether there’ll be more researchers or guards when we get there.  I’m not even sure if we’ll be able to get to the rooftop easily.  All I know is that the people I’m looking for will be up there.  And I bet they’re the only ones who’ll believe me if I explain the situation to them.  And if I can make it there and explain everything to them, then the guards and the police and everyone who wants to catch us will understand.  Oh, gosh….

            …It’s almost over; we’re almost there.  We’ve left behind Olivia, we’re almost at the point where the guards are behind us, and Joey and Yoshata are almost home.

            The thought wouldn’t leave her head.  Nor would the idea that top floor—and however many guards that might be up there—was only ten numbers away.

 

            Although her elevator had gone a good deal slower—all of the new elevators in the building did, for some reason like greater comfort or convenience—Olivia had reached the top floor not long ago.  Here she was, holding her de-neuron gun and cautiously walking through a long hallway.  By looking at the labels on every door, she deduced that this floor was where many of the main controls were.  Many of the main controls and many of the main researchers, as well.  There would be a single elevator here somewhere, and it would be the only one that led to the roof.  So there’s no way Joey and Tiffany could get there before me…if they’ve even managed to find a way up here without getting caught.

            But where’s that elevator?

            She stopped where the path went three ways.  Directly in front of her was a high-security door, labeled “Mechanical Control”.  It wasn’t what she was looking for.  However, the other two directions seemed promising: both were stairways leading to the upper level of the top floor—which, she was sure, contained the elevator and was just under the roof.  This meant that her choice didn’t exactly matter; she’d eventually end up at the same place.

            She took the right stairway and proceeded on.  Her path had taken her to the highest part of the building’s interior.  And it wouldn’t be too long until she would reach the last elevator.  She soon found a door at the top of the stairs and pulled it open.

            Behind the door lay the place she had been expecting: the top level of the top floor.  Just above here would be the roof of the skyscraper itself…and the perfect ending to Joey.

            This part of the building, she saw, was extremely small.  She stood at one of the endpoints of a moderately long hall.  The left stairway came out at the other endpoint, it seemed; and in the middle of the hallway, on the right wall, was another high security door.  Olivia had a feeling she knew what the large room behind the door was labeled, but she ran up to check.  The door was labeled “Universe Mapping System”.

            The technology used in that room had been the real beginning of her troubles, as she remembered—Tiffany had told Joey and Yoshata the same, although Olivia didn’t know that.  If it hadn’t held her back from her destination universe, then she would have been done with the historical alteration before Tiffany could even follow her.  If only that hadn’t happened….

            But now wasn’t the time for if onlys.  The elevator she needed was also on the right wall, in between the door and the left end of the hall…just a few steps away.  Olivia stepped in front of the elevator doors (feeling somewhat proud of herself, naturally) and pushed the button at the side.  The doors paused for a few seconds and slid open.

 

            A group of guards—very difficult to count, but perhaps twenty or thirty—ran to the upper floor through both stairways.  Nearly half crowded through the left end of the hallway, and the remaining group came through the other side.  They all ran to the center of the hall.

            “She got out!” one shouted.

            They all ran to the elevator that went to the roof.  It was the only answer; they knew that this was where she was headed, and she couldn’t have gotten anywhere else.  If she had attempted to break into one of the high-security rooms up here, they would have been informed.  But what did she plan to do up on the rooftop?

            One security guard—a brown Yoshi, in uniform like the rest of them—stepped forward, in front of the elevator doors.  “I have an idea!” he shouted.

            He had to shout a few times to gain their attention, but it wasn’t much of a problem for him.  When they were all listening, he began again.  “Obviously, she went up there for a reason.”

            No one else spoke, but a few other guards nodded their heads in agreement.

            “Now, there are two good reasons I can think of.  The first would be that she went up there as a last resort, since she has nowhere else to run.  The second is that she might have some way to escape.”

            “Then we better go up there!” shouted one guard near the end of the hall.

            “If we all do that, she might trick us and get back down here.  It’d be best if we sent a few of us up now to make sure she doesn’t get away, if she’s trying that.  The rest of us will stay down here and wait, with our guns still ready.  Does that work?”

            There were more nods of agreement and several positive replies.  It worked for him.

            “Then let’s do this!  You five in front: get into the elevator!”  He pushed five guards into the elevator, and they sent themselves up.

 

            A pair of elevator doors opened, but they weren’t the doors of Olivia’s elevators.  These belonged to another elevator—the one labeled “Fuel Transfer, Area 2, Storage Level”—which had just come to a stop at the top floor.  When the doors slid open, the elevator looked completely empty; however….

            “Is anyone out there?” Tiffany whispered.  She sat inside the elevator, to the left of the doors.  This, clearly, was to keep anyone from seeing her as easily, since her leg was still too disabled to move.

            Joey peeked out from his spot.  “No guards,” he whispered back.  He was sitting behind the elevator’s front wall as well, but to the right of the doors.

            “Okay, but anyone other than guards?  If you haven’t noticed—”

            “Yes, a few workers.  But none of them seem to be paying attention now.  Plus, you have a gun.”

            “Big deal; if you haven’t noticed, I have a bad leg right now.  Besides, you have a gun too, and your leg nerves are just fine!”

            “Do you want me to accidentally shoot you?  Let’s go, before the doors close on us!”

            Joey pulled Tiffany out from the elevator, miraculously without catching attention.  He sat down on the ground again, making himself level with Tiffany.

            The room they were in had a low ceiling, much in contrast to the entrance floor.  Joey and Tiffany were sitting on a regal blue carpet, their backs against the curved platinum side of a table with a glass top.  The room was definitely smaller than the entrance room and the Power System room, but it was also quite a bit bigger than the room in which they had entered the elevator.  There were a few workers (Researchers, Tiffany thought, and they’ll be helping us any minute now) on the other side of the room.  Also on the other side of the room was the entrance to a hallway…but neither of the two could see where it led.

            Not quite yet.

 

            On the upper level, the many security guards stood around the elevator doors as the opened.  What they were expecting was a dangerous periwinkle Yoshi that had finally been caught.  They expected her to come down the elevator under the jurisdiction of five trained security guards, thus proving the idea that the rooftop was her final resort.

            But Olivia was Olivia, and they got something on the opposite side of the expectation spectrum.  The elevator doors opened to reveal five guards, lying on the floor and against the walls of the elevator.  They had undoubtedly been de-neuroned…and what was more, one of them was missing his gun, helmet, and vest.

            “I think we have our answer,” said the brown Yoshi who had led the speaking earlier.  “She might be up there, trying to pick us all off.  Not a bad move, on her part; we can’t all fit in the elevator at once.

            “But…we can definitely fit more than five if we do this again.  She can’t do this forever, and I think she’s already just proven that she doesn’t have another way out.  Does anyone agree?”

            Almost everyone in the hall did.

            “All right, then.  Let’s get twelve in here!”

            Guards on both sides of the hall began to step forward and enter the elevator.  When there were twelve packed into the elevator, all guards made sure their de-neuron guns were ready, and one pressed the button on the inside of the elevator.  After the elevator had begun to go up, one of the guards still in the hall pushed the button near the doors.  The elevator came back down—meaning the others were up on the roof, finding Olivia—and twelve more guards stepped in.

            At this point, the guards’ message receivers—located in the helmets, attached to transmitters, as well—buzzed with someone’s voice.  It was someone in the control room for sure.  “We need someone down here!” the voice called.  “We’ve spotted the two others headed for the control room hallway!”

 

            “Keep going,” Tiffany whispered to Joey, as the two of them crawled across the blue carpet.  “Just don’t run into anyone’s feet if they’re passing by!”

            Joey didn’t bother to reply, as he was too busy concentrating on this anyway.  He had been successful in avoiding the workers’ feet so far, and he didn’t want to screw up.  Especially when the hallway was three feet ahead of him.  “We’re almost there!” he whispered back.

            Tiffany was nodding her head, but she stopped when she heard something coming from the hall.  She reached over, grabbed Joey, and pulled him away from the hallway’s entrance.  She crawled over to the left of the entrance and leaned against the wall.  She motioned for Joey to do the same.

            “What’s happening?” he asked her, becoming slightly worried.

            “Someone’s coming down from the hall.”

            “But I didn’t see—”

            “Did you notice the stairs at the end of the hall?”

            “…Oh.  But who could be coming?”

            “I don’t know.  It could be security; someone out here might have seen us and notified them.”

            “But they could all be coming!”

            “Then we should be getting ready, don’t you think so?  Pull your gun out, get it ready, and stand over on that side of the door.”

            Joey pulled his stolen de-neuron gun up, and Tiffany pushed him over to the right side of the hallway entrance.

            And if the guards coming from the upper level weren’t enough trouble, an elevator from behind Joey and Tiffany opened up, and some of the guards they had escaped earlier poured into the room.  These guards didn’t immediately recognize them, but Joey and Tiffany didn’t have time to hide.  They were soon singled out.

            She looked over to Joey.  She was becoming as nervous as he, but they both still had that determination.  She prepared her de-neuron gun, and he did the same.  Tiffany had a plan, but she was unsure as to whether it would work or not.  It’s worth a try, she thought.  We can’t do much else in this case.

            Then began the firing.  Tiffany and Joey had planned to shoot at the guards from the hall first, which would cause some confusion.  When they began firing, it seemed to be working.  Researchers and other workers jumped to the floor, as those on the first two floors had.  Several guards coming from the hall went down, from either their heads or their legs becoming paralyzed.  Many of them began firing back the other way, missing Joey and Tiffany and hitting the guards on the other side.  Joey and Tiffany tried hard to keep this happening.

            Since few guards could get a good aim at Tiffany’s neck, they would end up hitting her helmet or her de-neuron-proof vest.  But her left leg was still numb and immovable, so she was still having some difficulty herself.  “Keep shooting!” she shouted to Joey when her de-neuron gun was out.

            Joey did that, although he missed critical points nearly every time he fired at someone.  His de-neuron gun ran out of firepower not long after Tiffany’s had, and when that happened, he sank down to the wall with her.  The confused security guards were walking around the room—some were still accidentally firing at one another—but none of them saw Joey and Tiffany yet.

            Tiffany looked over to Joey.  “This is it,” she said, almost not loud enough to be heard over the guns and the shouting.  She might have sounded excited, but Joey wasn’t sure.  “We’re almost there, and this is our last obstacle.”

            “Before we get to the top?” asked Joey, sounding hopeful.  “And before we get home?”

            “I think so.  But I don’t know how easy this is going to be…and we don’t have much time before they catch us where we are.  You’re going to be on your own before you get to the rooftop, but I’m pretty sure that the distance between the room at the end of the hall and the way to the roof is short.  The stairs’ll lead you there.  Now start crawling, and grab a gun if you can!”

            She led the way, crawling and limping on her de-neuroned leg.  That leg was probably getting better by now, and it would definitely be better within a half hour.  Of course, crawling between lots of feet can make things really bad for anyone, and it made things even worse for Joey and Tiffany.  They did a good job of being as inconspicuous as possible, and if anyone happened to look down at them, that person was tripped on the spot.

            De-neuron blasts were making bright lights and loud noises overhead.  Tiffany had managed to trip one guard and make him drop his gun, and following that, she took the gun and handed it back to Joey.  She was also able to snatch one other de-neuron gun from a lowered hand.  When the gun’s unfortunate owner looked back down, he was shot in the neck and temporarily paralyzed in his whole body.  Tiffany only did this to either anyone who looked down at her or anyone who looked down at Joey.  It made the job of crawling through the crowded hallway somewhat easier.

            In a matter of a couple minutes, they crawled up at the end of the crowd.  This happened to be halfway into the hallway.

            “Okay, there it is,” Tiffany said eagerly.  Needless to say, she was pointing at the door labeled “Mechanical Control”.  And, as another unneeded note, “Mechanical Control” basically meant the controls of nearly the entire building.  Tiffany and Joey ran up the door, no longer having any care about whether the guards saw them or not.

            The door was made of glass, but it appeared to be the same type of security door as the one in the storage floor.  It had a card key slot and a ten-digit code entry system, for obvious reasons.  And a small wired alarm-box hidden in the door’s top section was likely what prevented anyone from breaking the glass.

            Tiffany wasn’t worried, however.  If she had to break it, it couldn’t really get any worse on her part, right?  But even so, she still had the card key she had used on the storage floor.  “And hopefully,” she whispered to herself as she lifted up the card key, “it’ll still work.”

            Joey was standing beside her, waiting.  He didn’t want to leave without her until he knew that Yoshata would be the only one waiting for him up there.

            Tiffany slid the card key through the slot.  She soon found, utterly to her dismay, that this door was different than the previous one.  Upon sliding the card key through the slot, she was prompted for a four-digit password.  And neither she nor Joey had any idea of what that password was.

            Joey could see through the transparent door that many of the workers in that room had taken their eyes off their computers to watch the fray in the room across the hall.  “Um, Tiff,” he began quietly.  “I think that we’re possibly being watched.  What if they—”

            “Keep your head down, and they won’t.  We’re still wearing uniforms and helmets, and we have our own guns, and I’m holding an official card key.  That shouldn’t make us look suspicious at all.  What will arouse their suspicious is when we break down this door and set off the alarm.”

            “Don’t do that!”

            “Well, do you have any ideas?  I don’t know the password the door’s asking for, and I’m sure you don’t.  And I really doubt that asking a fellow guard will work.  But if you have a better idea…hey, go ahead!”

            Joey paused for a moment and squinted, looking through the glare of the glass door.  “I think our answer’s coming this way, Tiff.”

            Tiffany had to see past the door’s glare as well, but she found that he was right.  One of the workers in the room was approaching the door.  He thought that they were security, and he was going to open it for them.  That was exactly what he did.

            “Sorry about that,” he said to them.  “We’ve thought about making these doors more convenient for everyone and secure at the same time, but you know…anyway, whaddaya need?”

            Tiffany grinned, looked up at him, and pulled up her gun.  One green flash later, his temporarily paralyzed body was on the floor.  With the door behind her locked and everyone’s attention centered on her, Tiffany began to speak, still holding her de-neuron gun for emphasis.  “Nobody moves, and nobody talks, unless I say so,” she began.  What a lousy opening, she thought.

            One worker looked like he was about to call up security.  She fired at his arm, and didn’t miss.  He stopped immediately and watched her.  At least that’ll put something in their heads.

            “I’m not here to hurt anyone—I never was—but if you don’t help me, I’ll have to shoot you.”

            Everything I say sounds stupid…I talked like this when I went to Yoshata’s house, and when I did that, I wasn’t even trying.

            “I’ll explain everything about myself, this guy with me, the other one who was in this building, and our other friend you’ve probably heard about.  But first, I need you to send a message to the security guards near or on this floor.  Whose job is that?”

            One worker—a dark teal Yoshi in the edge of the room, wearing a small receiver-transmission headset—raised his good hand.  Apparently, he was the one Tiffany shot.

            …Oops.

            “Okay!  Tell them to leave the two blue kids—that’d be the two of us—alone and to let them go to the roof.  And tell them that they won’t be going through at the same time.  Oh, and tell them to keep an eye out for Olivia, the periwinkle one, okay?”

            The messages control worker nodded, but was reluctant to give the message.  So, Tiffany moved the gun around in her hand and repeated, “I don’t want to hurt anyone….”  He still hesitated a bit, but prepared to send the message.

            He gave Tiffany’s message to every nearby guard with a helmet receiver.

            Right now, none of these guys must be liking me much, Tiffany thought.  They’re probably not gonna believe me when I tell them everything…heh…that would be very interesting….

            “It’s sent?” she asked the communications worker, implying the message.

            He nodded.  Which meant that Joey could go up to temporary protection while Tiffany explained their long escape from Olivia.

            Once they hear the whole story—especially parts about who Olivia is—they should understand.  Maybe even convince other people that it wasn’t what it at first appeared to be.  Let’s just hope that I don’t screw up while I try to talk.

            “Joey,” she said.

            He looked at her.  “Now, right?”

            Right.

            “Yeah…go up the stairs…there should be an elevator or some more stairs, I think.”

            “And when I get to the roof?”

            “Yoshata should be waiting, in the SkyCar.  Make sure she’s careful when she lands to pick you up.”

            “And…when do you suppose we should come back in the building?”

            “Wait for…hm…thirty minutes.  Okay?”

            “Okay.  I’ll see you then!”

            Tiffany nodded, and Joey ran out of the room.  The last she saw of him before she turned back to explain to the Time Travel Project workers was Joey walking up the left stairway.  She gave a smile, although her heart was beating hard and she could feel her hands twitching.  Now comes the last part of my job here, she thought.  Explaining to the authorities so I can escape trouble.

            That was meant to be the last part of her job.  However, now was still not the right time.

            Not quite yet.

 

            It felt weird to Joey, walking up the stairs and through a hall filled with lots of guards that could have shot him at any moment.  But, although his appearance roused them, they obeyed their orders.  The workers in control were some of the highest-regarded authorities in the hierarchy, just below the main researchers and workers found in the Universe Mapping System room and on parts of the top floor.

            But Joey, not yet being the complex thinker he might be later, didn’t know about any of this.  All he knew (and cared) about this situation was the fact that he had a free pass to the rooftop, and no one could stop him.  He, Yoshata, and Tiffany would be home soon, now that the guards were out of the way and Olivia was out of the way.

 

            The members of security that stood around the elevator watched him stand at the doors and push the button.  Nearly all of them were wondering why they were told to just let him go; however, they said nothing.  And none of them bothered to speak about Olivia; she had to be taken care of by now anyway, after they had sent a group of twenty-four up after her.

            But still: what made him innocent so suddenly?

            …Perhaps answers would come later.

            The blue Yoshi kid walked into the elevator when the doors slid open.  The guards around him wondered how he got his de-neuron gun, his de-neuron-proof vest, and his helmet; it was a sure thing none of them gave those things to him.

 

            The doors closed, and Joey found himself in yet another elevator.  This was the only elevator of its kind that he had encountered in his long escape from Olivia, the would-be assassin.  What made it so special—so different from any other elevator here, or in the Orange Springs Hotel, or anywhere else he had been during his time here—was that it was listed with only two floors.  And one of those floors was the R floor—the final, final floor, where he would meet with Yoshata after their brief distraction with Olivia.  As he believed it, it would be the last elevator he would be on until they went down to find a time machine.

            But there was more about this special elevator.  This was the elevator that led to a final conflict between Olivia and her three adversaries.  And the terrible surprise behind it was mutual.

            As the doors opened, the image behind them was shocking.  Paralyzed—or dead—bodies of guards lay scattered across the rooftop.  They were all hit, and Joey couldn’t see a gun anywhere.  All of them had been stripped of their weaponry.  “Weird,” he remarked, finding that it was the only thing he thought of saying.  He was very frightened about this—Yoshata wouldn’t have done something like this, and he didn’t know anyone else who could have done it at this point—but he proceeded outside, to the chilly, windy night at the top of the Time Travel Project skyscraper.

            Where were Yoshata and the red SkyCar?  He didn’t know.  Things had just suddenly become very puzzling to him.  What had happened to everyone else on this roof?  He didn’t know.

            Then came the horribly provoking question: Had Olivia really been left behind them?

            Immediately, the nervous part of his mind shot out, Oh, of course.  She’s long gone, and she ain’t never comin’ back.  No, we left behind Olivia long ago.

            But the question had provoked another part of his mind to speak: How do we know that?  Tiffany and I left on an elevator headed for the lowest floor so we could escape her.  But she knew where we were headed, didn’t she?  And we never saw where she went to after the elevator doors closed.  It’s in all likelihood that she escaped those guards on the second floor….

            He dismissed both voices the moment he saw a red SkyCar.  It was, without a doubt, the car Yoshata was driving, and it was rising up from its hiding place behind the building.  Joey was rejoicing inside his head.  “It’s over!” he shouted, this time loud enough for everyone on the rooftop to hear.  He ran across the first curved tower, about to cross over to the second one on the right side.  However, both he and Yoshata were interrupted by someone they had neither expected nor wanted to see.  It almost could have been predicted; she never gave up.

            “Yeah, it is over!” Olivia announced as she stepped forward from the towers’ intersecting building.

            She was just as surprised as Joey was; at first, she hadn’t expected him to get this far, especially without the help of his daughter.  In addition to that, she was wearing the same uniform as he was, and she also had a de-neuron gun.  The difference between them was that Olivia was holding her gun.  Joey had forgotten to do so.

            He was about to pull out his weapon, but Olivia de-neuroned his right arm before he could.  His gun fell to the ground.  He didn’t dare to try and pick it up, for fear of getting shot by Olivia again.  His arm felt like it had a bad mix of winter numbness and lack of circulating blood.  His outlook on the situation had become even worse: it was like the feeling he had gotten when he had realized he had forgotten to take notes on the day of the test, only ten times worse.

            Olivia picked up his gun for him.  Then she chucked it over the fence on the building’s edge.  When his attention left the dangerous height of the building and centered on her, she began to speak.  “I got that message from the control room,” she told him, and she tapped the headset attached to her helmet.  “And although you may have been able to fool security into letting you through, you won’t get past me.  Not this time.

            “You see that fence over there?”  Olivia pointed over to a fence around the circular section inscribed by the building.  “I used the card key in this vest to get behind there…and I must say, I was impressed.  You see all those warnings on the fence?  They’re all there for good reason: that drop is tremendous…and I’d hate to be the one to fall down it!”

            Joey began to understand what was happening.  He didn’t care about getting shot.  He just wanted to run out of here and avoid being dropped off this building.  And that was what he was about to do.  But Olivia grabbed his arm and pulled him back.  She continued talking calmly as she dragged him over to the interior fence.

            “You know what else impressed me?  The system they use for getting fuel.  What they do is they open a huge time portal at the bottom of this circular gap and extract fuel and such from the past of another universe, where resources are more abundant.  They have the fuel brought up through a large pipe connected to a wall on the inside of the circle, and that pipe goes into the wall just before it reaches the rooftop.  The resources are moved up through the pipe by huge electromagnets lining the circular wall; these magnets are successively turned on and off, moving the magnetized resources upwards.

            “But don’t let that relieve you; I’m afraid to say that you’ll be falling down just as the bottom magnet is turned on.  You’ll be going down too fast to be caught in its field, and when you hit that portal at the bottom, you’ll be crushed into the ground on that side.  Imagine it: the creator of time travel dying just as he uses it!”

            She pulled him over to the fence’s gate.  There were numerous warnings around the gate, but Olivia wasn’t worried.  The gate was already opened, and poor Joey could see partially down the circular drop.  He really didn’t want to.  He tried violently thrashing and tugging and pulling, but it did nothing.  As he was determined to escape, Olivia was just as eager to kill him.  She lifted him up, carefully avoiding his kicks, and walked to the open gate.

            “I guess as my last words to you,” Olivia began, still holding him tightly, “I should say that I wouldn’t have done this if you weren’t the one…and that I’m sorry for what I’m about to do.”

            “Then—don’t—do it!” Joey was screaming and sobbing at the same time.

            Olivia ignored him.  Although she had told him she was sorry, she almost looked happy now.  It was relief.  “Now, do you have any last words?”

            Joey was crying too hard to speak.  But someone did for him.

            “I have some words for you,” shouted the voice, loud and clear.

            Yoshata.  Still in the SkyCar, shouting to Olivia from the loose door on the driver side.

            “Don’t—move.”  She held her left hand out the door, forming some kind of matter—Olivia couldn’t tell what it was from where she stood.

            But she deeply regretted turning towards the car.  It hovered over the area just in front of the intersecting building between the towers, looking as if it would run her over if she as much as took one finger off of Joey.  It made it terribly difficult for Olivia to turn around to the edge and let go of Joey.  She didn’t want to die, but if Joey died before she did, then everything would be fine for her.

            Yet, in spite of this little philosophy, she couldn’t find it in herself to jump off the building.  And the answer was simple: I don’t want to risk dying.

            So, she followed the best course of action: talking with Yoshata.

            “Why not?” she shouted back.  “What’ll you do?  Run me over?  I’m still holding him right in front of me, you know!”

            “I could save him,” countered Yoshata.  “I’m fast enough to do that, especially with this car.  And once I have him protected, I can deal with you in any way I want.”

            At first, it didn’t seem believable to Olivia.  But it was true that the girl did have a SkyCar, and she just might be able to go down fast enough to catch Joey.  Wonders never ceased in this place, especially when they were against her.

            But she kept looking as if Yoshata were bluffing.  “That’s a lie, and you know it!” she scoffed.  Of course, that was somewhat contrary to her belief, and she still wasn’t really showing that she didn’t believe Yoshata.  She was still standing in one place, not moving, as she was told; she was just hoping that Yoshata wasn’t figuring her out.

            Yoshata gave Olivia the very response she wanted, which was no response at all.  She’s scared, Olivia told herself.  She believes everything I tell her, and she’s too nervous to make a move.

            If I keep talking to her, I might be able to get out of this standoff.

            “Don’t you realize that nothing you can say or do will make me let go of Joey?” she shouted.  “He’s eventually going to meet his fate, and you’re just prolonging the moment!  Can’t you see?”

            Olivia didn’t expect her first remark to change Yoshata’s mind.  It didn’t.

            “I can see that you’re lying!” she retorted.  “If you really wanted to do this, you would have already thrown Joey off!  You just don’t want to sacrifice yourself!”

            So Yoshata was trying to pick at her weak spot, as well.  This won’t be easy.

            “If I threw Joey off the edge right now, I don’t think you’d want to risk falling after him, either!  Would you take that risk if you had to?  Would you risk your life for your friend?”

 

            In the midst of their arguing, a paralyzed guard regained basic movement ability.  He and the other downed guards were able to hear all of this as it happened.  Just as she had done to them, Olivia had ambushed the blue Yoshi they were ordered to leave alone.  Perhaps this was the reason; perhaps the real enemy was the periwinkle lady.  And it seemed to fit perfectly well in his mind.

            But right now the periwinkle lady was over near the center of the roof, threatening to kill the blue kid and exchanging discouragements with whoever was in the red SkyCar, and he couldn’t do anything about it.  After he had been shot down, she had taken his de-neuron gun and thrown it over the outside edge of the roof.  She had done the same to every other paralyzed guard if she hadn’t chosen to take that guard’s gun instead.  Without a weapon, he could do nothing to help them.

            However, an idea entered his head.  A very good idea.  It just might work, he thought hopefully.  And if it does, then we can save him.  But I have to get to control.

            His helmet headset was still intact, which meant that he could indeed contact the control room.  Transmissions from guards to the control room were only heard between the guard and the control room.  “But they can’t send a message back to me,” he told himself quietly.  “Or else she’ll hear it, too.  So how…?”

            He thought anxiously, looking around for some way to make his plan perfect.  “But what?” he asked himself, looking around the rooftop.

            And then he saw it, straight in front of him.  If what he was thinking about could be done, then they could save someone’s life.  He set his headset to “transmit” and waited.

 

            Tiffany, meanwhile, had no idea of the danger Joey was in.  What occupied her right now was telling her long story to the workers of the control room.  She was trying her best at not being an idiot at public speaking, and she was making some progress; she had just finished explaining how she had used a time machine to get to the year 2003.  To help her convince the authorities, she showed them “evidence”—the scrap of paper on which she recorded universe identities.  This, she believed, helped influence them at least a little bit.

            As she was beginning on the next part—the identities of the blue and sky blue Yoshies—the communications worker held up his hand as if to say, “hold on.”  He was receiving a message, and the news of this caused everyone, including Tiffany, to turn around and listen.

            The communications worker, his de-neuroned arm beginning to get better, nodded several times and mumbled several affirmative remarks into the headset.  His eyes slowly widened.  The message lasted a while—at least, it seemed to everyone in the room—and when it ended, the communications worker quickly turned to everyone.  “There’s trouble,” he said worriedly.

            Before anyone could question what, he continued.  “There’s that periwinkle lady up there on the roof, and she’s holding the blue kid hostage.”

            Tiffany rushed up from the group.  “What?” she demanded, her hands twitching even more now.

            “She’s threatening to throw him down to the central fuel portal, and the only thing stopping her is someone in a red SkyCar just above the building.”

            Another person stepped up—likely the chief technician for the central fuel system.  “But that’s nearly eleven hundred feet down!” she exclaimed.  “The only thing that could break his fall would be…one of the topmost magnets, I’m sure!”

            “Look,” said the communications operator as calmly as he could manage, “that’s what we’re planning to do.  But manually controlling those electromagnets takes time, doesn’t it?”

            The technician nodded her head, trying to think under this sudden stress.

            Tiffany was even more nervous, wondering what might happen and how Olivia managed to reach the roof and how Yoshata could stop her.  Everyone else might have been planning to stop this, but that didn’t seem to matter to her right now.  All that mattered now was regarding what was happening right now between Yoshata and Olivia.

            “So while we set that up, we need to make sure that the kid is as relieved as possible—we don’t want him going into…shock, or something—and that whoever is in that SkyCar can stall for as long as possible.  The person driving the SkyCar will be doing both jobs for us.

            “Now, go!  Start manual override of those magnets immediately!”

            The central fuel system technician turned back to her computer and began working fervently.

            The communications operator continued.  “I can change the signals for the communications radar so it’ll connect to that SkyCar.”  He turned to completely face Tiffany.  “I believe it’s—it’s some kind of security system installed so that police car drivers can deliver messages to the cars.  It overrides the radio and sound system.”

            The mention of both a security system and a sound system worried Tiffany.  The car had been malfunctioning in those areas since she had broken into it and messed up the already bad ignition system.  But she didn’t tell the communications worker this; he was still talking to her.

            “When I connect to that car, I’m gonna need you to speak to the driver, since I have no idea who he or she is.  You have to get the driver to tell the blue kid that he’ll be all right and that you’re taking care of it.  You also have to get the driver to keep the other lady from doing anything.  Can you do it?”

            Tiffany knew that he didn’t ask that as real question; she had to.  But she could anyway, and she would.  “Yes,” she replied a second after his request.

            “Okay.

            “…And if we get this right, I think your explanation will become much clearer to us.”

            He changed a few settings on the control panel in front of him, then set the headset to “transmit”.  Tiffany put it on and waited for Yoshata to receive the message.

 

            Yoshata hadn’t been acting much differently over the past two or three minutes: she and Olivia were still throwing disheartening statements at one another.  She had no idea of who was “winning,” if either of them was.  But she had just finished repeating her statement that Olivia would have already made her move if she hadn’t been afraid of being hit by the car.

            Right now Olivia was countering her with some useless insult, but Yoshata hadn’t been able to hear this time.  Because as she was trying to listen, the SkyCar took another dangerous lurch downwards.  She let out a small shriek—even now, she wasn’t used to the malfunctioning vehicle—and tightly gripped the steering wheel.  The car regained its lift, but this time, something else unexpected happened.

            “Yoshata!” came a muffled cry.  Yoshata looked down at her radio speaker.  Someone’s voice—It’s Tiff, she realized at once—was somehow coming through to the SkyCar.  And it was Tiffany.  “That’s where she’s been,” Yoshata said to herself, completely ignoring Olivia’s comeback.

            “Yoshata!” the voice repeated, becoming gargled with the static.

            “What?” she asked, leaning her head to the speaker.

            There was a pause on the other side.  Then, Tiffany’s voice came back, clear enough to be heard and understood.  “Look, you can’t talk back to me,” it began.

            Yoshata took her head away from the speaker, feeling a bit stupid.

            “But you have to listen.  We’re going to make sure Joey will be all right—we’re going to let Olivia throw him, and then we’re going to keep him protected—but you need to tell him that.

            “Don’t worry about Olivia hearing; she has no where else to go anyway, and she might not believe you.  But I need you to do something else, too.  You need to stall for a while, like you’ve been doing.  Keep her from doing anything until we’re ready.  I’ll talk to you again when it’s time.”

            There was a click, and then utter silence again.

            I know what to do, she thought.  The tables are turning again.  And I can’t wait to save Joey and finish off Olivia.

            She looked back out through her door.  There was Olivia, still standing at the opened gate, holding Joey and waiting for a response to her criticism.  There’d be a response, all right; and she wouldn’t be holding Joey for long.  Yoshata had to hold her still for a moment, as Tiffany had asked.  And it hadn’t been hard for her so far, right?

            Right, she thought.  But what should I say?  I can’t keep arguing the same thing…she’ll ignore me and drop him if I try that again.  So should I just be quick and tell Joey that he’s not going to die?  And what would Olivia think if I said that?  What if she suspects something?

            …Then again, she still might be afraid of dropping him in front of me.

            It was time to be courageous; Joey was almost safe, and in his position, there wasn’t much else for them to lose.  “Joey!” Yoshata shouted through her opened door.

            Joey was already looking up to her; he had been watching her from the moment she had driven up above them.  This, however, had been the first time she had addressed him while they were up here.  “Help me!” he cried back.

            “We will!  Just wait, and be calm!  She can’t do anything to hurt you, and if she throws you off, you won’t fall down!  Please, Joey!  Try your best to stay calm!”

            This Olivia didn’t believe.  Well, it looks like I’ve done it, she thought to herself.  She doesn’t think she can stop me anymore.  And she can’t.  Now all she can do is try to comfort him during his last time here.

            “Is that the best you can do?” she shouted.  Yoshata might have expected some kind of maniacal laughter, but Olivia didn’t do that; she was still far from maniacal.  “Nothing you can do will stop me; how many times have I had to tell you?  I’m going to finish what I need to do in the end, whether you like it or not.  I’ve told you before that I’m sorry about this—I’ve tried to convince you that I’m doing the right thing—but you’ve always come back to stop me…and right now, I’m almost doing this so you’ll leave me alone!  Nothing you can do will stop me.  Especially a last resort like this!”

            Yoshata took a moment to think about what Olivia’s reasoning.  Not that she would listen to any of it; Olivia wasn’t the only one here determined to finish something.  But Yoshata did think about the idea behind what Olivia had said.  “…She thinks I’m still trying to stall,” she whispered to herself.  Then she opened up the loose driver side door again, and she looked outside.

            “Don’t listen to her, Joey!  We can stop her, and we will!  Besides, she’s still too scared to do anything, because she’s too afraid to die!”

            “Are you asking for me to kill him?  Do you want me to drop him over this edge behind me?  Because whether I die or not, he still will in the end.  I can let him fall right now, if you wish, and you can be sure that he won’t be all right!”

 

            “Has it worked yet?” Tiffany asked the central fuel systems technician.  It was the fifth time she had asked.  And although she was trying not to be annoying, she was already sounding very paranoid, and she was twiddling her thumbs almost violently.

            Then again, why not?  This was, after all, the critical moment of their conflict with Olivia.  It was now or never, all or nothing.  If Yoshata could convince Joey that he wouldn’t die if he was thrown down the building’s central gap, then the first step of their “grand” plan would be done.  And not long after, the second part would follow.

            The second part, Tiffany thought, watching the technician in front of her work on the computer all the while, where we save Joey and have Olivia arrested…or killed….

            …And come to think of it, I never was able to go back the hotel and face her.  So now I can’t deal with her myself.  Which means that her fate’ll be left in the hands of the authorities here, I think.

            She had gotten no reply from the central fuel system technician, so she repeated her question: “Has it worked yet?”

            The technician didn’t look back at Tiffany, but her voice sounded promising.  “Almost.  Once this turns of the automatic controls and such, I can recalibrate the electromagnet on-off sequence, so that the magnets turn on at the top when I push a button.  Fortunately, your friend is wearing enough metal around him to hold him up in the air if he doesn’t fall too far.”

            “But if—”

            “And he won’t fall too far, so long as we’re in control when he gets dropped.  If he were to fall past one of those magnets, he would gain too much speed for the next one to catch him.”

            “And what about Olivia, the crazy lady holding him?  She’s wearing the same metal as he is!”

            “Yes.  And she might end up going in after him; however, once the two of them are caught in that electromagnetic field, they shouldn’t be able to reach each other.  So while they’re stuck there, we’ll send someone up to take both of them back into the building.”

            So, from the way it sounded, Olivia and Joey would both be brought back into the building.  Not good…but right now, could Tiffany choose to protest?  She could, but it wouldn’t be a smart decision.  So she kept her mouth shut.  At least Joey will still alive if we catch the two of them, she thought.

            “What’ll happen if they go through the portal at the bottom?”  Tiffany was now talking just to keep herself occupied; just waiting for the magnets to start working manually made seconds seem like minutes, and thus minutes like hours. 

            The technician still faced the computer, watching the progress of the automatic-to-manual setup, but she replied and didn’t sound annoyed.  “That portal leads to an area with more fuel resources than we have around here.  It would pretty much revolutionize the economy if everyone could do that, but that’s a bit too dangerous, and something out of the topic.  But as I was saying, that portal is a large version of one of our models, I believe, and it leads to a remote area in some other universe about a thousand years back—I’m not sure about all the details, though; I don’t work upstairs.”

            Tiffany took the term “upstairs” to mean the Universe Mapping System room.  It had to be on the top of the final floor; if this was the second most important room in the building, then surely the one above it would be where the most important mechanisms and researchers in the building were.  So those who worked “upstairs” likely would have known more details on the portal at the bottom of the building’s inscribed center.

            “So if our ‘friends’ up at the roof should fall through it and survive,” the technician continued, “they would pass through to the other side.  Now, they could come back through…unless we just close the portal before they can.  That’d happen pretty quickly, unlike this procedure, and it would keep them from coming to this side.  Plus, it would cut our expensive fuel pipe in half as it closed.  And—”

            There was a pause.  Something had finally happened.  Tiffany started walking quickly in place and tying up all of her fingers.

            “—And I think we have manual override.  Here we go…okay, recalibrating electromagnetic sequence!”

 

            Yoshata had just finished listening to Olivia’s latest counter remark.  It had been a few minutes, and now she was starting to worry.  In addition to her phobia of falling down from the skyscraper in her faulty SkyCar, Yoshata had fears of Olivia throwing Joey down from the building before Tiffany and the workers downstairs could save him.  She trusted Tiffany—the only time she truly hadn’t was when she didn’t even know her—but her worry brought about a tiny bit of doubt, just as it does with anyone.  Of course, she still knew that Olivia would deserve death if it came to her; Yoshata wanted to personally teach Olivia a lesson herself.

            And then she and Joey could return home, as they had wished since the time Tiffany had pulled them out.

            It was a hopeful thought, but a short-lived one.  The reason for this being Tiffany’s second message to the SkyCar.

            “Yoshata”—static—“the magnets have been fixed.  Go”—more static—“and get Joey; she can’t”—static—“do anything now, even if she throws him off.  Now go and get him back any way you feel like, and knock her into the magnets, if you can.  We almost”—static—“have them, and we can almost go”—some final distortion, and the last part of the message—“back home.”

            There was a click, and Tiffany’s orders to finish the job were made.  Yoshata was about to go down and drive towards Olivia.  She was just about to finish it, almost about to end it.  But as it would seem, this particular universe had a sense of humor, and it wished to keep this going.  The red SkyCar, flying just above the outside edge of the building, had more internal trouble and fell back.

 

            Olivia, who was still holding Joey (her stinging arm was really just sore now) and who was still waiting for Yoshata to lose heart, saw this as opportune moment.  A very opportune moment, in fact, with the red SkyCar somehow failing and dropping down the side of the building.  She had seen it happen before—not long ago, while she and Yoshata were still throwing discouraging statements at each other—but she hadn’t been prepared then.  She had waited, and now she was ready.  And things couldn’t have gone better for her, it seemed; the SkyCar had taken a serious system failure this time, and Olivia could no longer see it around the building.

            She took this time to turn around and hold Joey over the edge.  He wasn’t sobbing now—He must’ve believed her lie…he’s as desperate as they all are—but he still seemed increasingly nervous.  She didn’t want to wait and make this terribly dramatic…because whenever she had tried to do that before, she always would get caught by one of them before she could finish it.  So this was the time.  This clear autumn midnight (which would start changing to day sooner or later) would be the date of Joey’s death.  She held him over the edge of the circular gap, and she dropped him down.

            Joey closed his eyes before he was dropped.  Even if he was assured protection (and from Tiffany, someone he would always trust), being dropped from a height like this made him feel like he’d have a heart attack.  So he didn’t watch.

            The drop actually felt longer than it really was; he felt the cold wind going upward against him, and for a moment he lost his breath, but that was quick psychological torture, if anything.  His relief as he got caught in the first magnetic field was tremendous, but he couldn’t even let out a sigh.  In fact, he took in deep breaths, suddenly feeling great to be alive, assassin or no assassin.

 

            “We caught him,” declared the surveillance technician.  No one cheered, but they all were relieved, as well.  Especially Tiffany.  She walked over to the surveillance technician and looked at the large grid of screens he was looking at.  On a small colored screen in near the center was the image of Joey’s current location, the top magnet ring in the central fuel system.  He was floating around, bound to an invisible plane of magnetism.  Tiffany stared at the screens, her eyes widening.

            She couldn’t find the SkyCar anywhere near the rooftop.  Until—

 

            —Until Yoshata regained control of the SkyCar, things had seemed to be going down just as fast as she was beginning to fall.  For a moment she thought that this would be it, that she’d be unable to stop the vehicle from going down.  But she was able to kick the power back into the SkyCar one last time, and it came back on with flashing lights and a few garbled error messages.  It soared back up towards its previous location and past the security fence, but Yoshata stopped it a few feet below the last location.  The bottom of the car was close and parallel to the floor of the roof.

            And there was Olivia, still standing at and staring down the inside edge.  Although Yoshata didn’t see her face, she was sure that Olivia had a dumbfounded, surprised look about her.  This was the perfect chance to drive up behind Olivia.  She took advantage of it.

 

            Olivia, as a matter of fact, did get a very big surprise.  It had truly not been as she expected, and she suddenly felt stupid when she realized it: She wasn’t lying to Joey.  Yoshata hadn’t lied to Joey after all, and Tiffany had saved him.

            At least, Tiffany had saved him for now.  But not for much longer.  I’ll find a way, she thought, now becoming angry again.  I’ll find a way to get down there after you, Joey.  And then you’ll be dead.  Enjoy this temporary comfort, it’ll be over soon.

            It would, but not because of Olivia.  Yoshata would cause the next life-threatening sequence of events.  And yet she was the only one who could still save Joey, as well.

            As Olivia looked down at Joey, she could barely hear the sound of a car behind her.  Her recognition of what was behind came about five seconds early.  She looked back and saw a red SkyCar drifting just a bit above the roof, headed straight for her.  This, of course, put her in a tough position.

            Olivia had a choice of jumping and risking being tricked, or standing up here and risking getting either killed or knocked down anyway.  She quickly decided to take the latter, with the philosophy that she might be able to do something about Joey in addition to saving herself from Yoshata.  In other words, she could possibly “kill two birds with one stone” by jumping after Joey.

 

            Yoshata watched as Olivia jumped into the magnetic field.  Her trap had worked; Olivia was now stuck down in an electromagnetic circle, where she could eventually be caught and taken care of.  Now all I have to do, she thought, is go down there and get Joey.  Then we can catch up with Tiff and go back home.

            She moved the car higher up in the air and waited for some kind of malfunction.  Nothing so far…that was good.  She drove above the gap and prepared to make a slow descent towards Joey.  “I’m coming down, Joey!” she shouted, her voice showing signs of relief.  She didn’t hear his reply.

            But there was another problem.  Another problem, which would add a touch of difficulty to saving Joey.  Actually, scratch that; it would add more than a just a touch of difficulty to the situation.

 

            Tiffany and the technicians in the control room saw it just as Yoshata realized it: the red SkyCar (now hovering just above the magnets) was malfunctioning again.  And her worst fears were coming true as she pieced together the situation.  “Oh no,” she uttered, finding that it was all she could think of saying.  She looked around, not sure what to do.

            It’s going to fall, she thought.  Yoshata’s car is going to fall down on them if they don’t get out of that magnetic field.  What do I do?

            Like a miracle, the answer came to her as soon as she asked the question.  The central fuel system technician.

            Tiffany almost tossed herself across the room.  She grabbed the technician’s shoulder and started to shake it.  “You have to turn off the first magnet!” she yelled.

            “But what—”

            “Just do it!”

            The technician was nervous—and as reluctant as the communications operator, at first—but she did what Tiffany asked.  She didn’t want to get shot by this girl,  especially when she was acting crazy like this.  The first magnet went off.

            “Our two buddies are falling out of the first magnet ring!” announced the surveillance technician.

            “Okay, turn the first and second magnets on!” Tiffany ordered.  The technician obeyed her without question, and she changed the settings on her computer.  The first magnet turned on—it would likely stop the SkyCar—and the second one turned on at the same time.  Tiffany turned around to look at the screens.

            Joey and Olivia had both been caught in place by the second magnet.  They were safe.  But Tiffany wasn’t sure what would happen to the SkyCar when it entered the first field of magnetism.  Would it stop?  And would Yoshata be able to turn the SkyCar back on?

 

            To Joey, the only thing that mattered was the person at the magnetic controls.  He had been unpleasantly surprised when the first magnet had turned off, and he and Olivia had dropped again.  Now he saw the danger of Tiffany’s malfunctioning car just overhead, and he hoped that whoever was at the controls of these magnets knew what he or she was doing.  Because if the car kept falling, they would have to keep falling to lower magnets.  And if they kept doing that until they reached the bottom, they would get crushed by the car when no more magnet rings were present.  The only way out would be if Yoshata could restart the car; he had seen her do that just a few minutes ago (after Olivia had continued arguing with her)…so she had to be able to do it again, right?

            Hopefully.

            Things only became worse, as he discovered.  The SkyCar had almost stopped when it passed the first magnet—it had slowed down its falling speed, at least—but it came short of doing so, and it began its dangerous drop towards Joey and Olivia again.

            Joey’s heart was already pounding enough, and this was making it start to violently jump.  He held his hands up to his face, waiting for the coming impact.  He was sure that Olivia was doing the same, although it surprised him that he would even be thinking about her at a time like this.

 

            “All right,” Tiffany said with a firm voice, carefully pronouncing each word that she said.  “Now!”

            The central fuel system technician knew exactly what to do.  She quickly changed one switch, then changed it back, along with another switch.  “This should…give them a bit more time to get outta there,” the technician said to Tiffany.

            Tiffany knew the reason for that careful choice of words, although she didn’t want to believe it.  She tried her best to ignore it and looked to the set of screens in front of the surveillance technician.  It didn’t take long for her to find the right screen.

            On the screen was the image of the third electromagnet from the top of the central fuel system.  Joey and Olivia had just fallen into its magnetic pull, and the metallic material in their guards’ uniforms attracted them to the force.  There were still many magnets left for them to fall to; however, there was still the problem of what would happen if Yoshata couldn’t restart the SkyCar by the time she fell to the bottom.  And there was another problem.

            Yoshata’s SkyCar was slowly gaining speed as it fell.  And although its speed decreased a bit whenever it fell through a magnet, it still had dropping momentum left over from its last period of falling.  If things proceeded like this, Joey would be smashed even before he reached the ground.

            Yoshata needs to do this.  I have to tell her…she has to restart that car….

            Tiffany walked away from the fuel system technician and over to the communications operator.  “I need you to send another message to that SkyCar,” she said, and stressed it by adding, “right now.”

            He didn’t bother to argue this time; there was too much at stake here to argue, regardless of how much he knew about it.  He reconnected the communicator to the SkyCar radio.  “I dunno how well this’ll work,” he said, handing her the communications headset at the same time, “with that car acting up the way it is.”

            It’s acting up, all right, Tiffany thought.  Enough to get my two friends and I killed.  She waited for a sign saying that she was connected to the SkyCar’s radio.

 

            “Come on!” Yoshata hissed.  “Come on!  Work!”

            Repeatedly turning the key in the ignition slot was doing nothing.  The car Yoshata was driving was still falling, and trying to restart it was like learning to drive it all over again.  And she had the faintest feeling that she was falling faster and faster, getting closer and closer to Joey and Olivia.  If she couldn’t reach out and pull him into the car, then she would crush him once they reached the bottom.  What was worse, her powers were useless in the situation.

            She had resorted to pulling the key out and jamming it back in, but even that had effected to nothing.  Ideas were running out of her head as worries rushed in: Is this car really too broken to start?  What’ll I do?  Why aren’t the magnets working on the car?

            There was no use in forcing the key in and out of the ignition; if anything, that probably made the problem worse.  So Yoshata left it in and tried turning it on and off again.  There was a spark once; at this point, the lights flickered on and the radio played a short garbled message.  But when Yoshata tried to move the car up again, nothing happened.  There was something seriously screwed up in the car’s flight system.  Yoshata could remember a similar occurrence that had happened when they had used Tiffany’s stolen blue SkyCar.  Of course, that time it had been due to a fuel leakage caused by Olivia, and that car’s system had been able to fix it relatively quickly by turning on auxiliary power.

            If only that was happening here.

            While the rest of the car’s systems were functioning half-decently, the radio began to play another somewhat garbled message.  Yoshata wasn’t sure if this was another messed up error message from the car’s internal computer, but as she listened to the message (while still struggling with the stubborn key) she began to figure everything out.

            “Yo—you—Joey—he f—now—don’t, th—and the—crush him!  Y—to do—before it’s too—”

            That garbled message was stopped at those three words.  Yoshata had no idea what was being said, but she realized—as she was still violently turning the key in the ignition—from the last part of the message that the voice belonged to Tiffany.

            She looked out through her broken door.  It might break off soon, if the SkyCar kept gaining speed as it fell.  Not as if that mattered; Yoshata knew that this would be the first and last SkyCar she would ever drive, whether she made it out of this mess or not.  But she could catch small glimpses of Joey and Olivia falling under her.  Fortunately for them, they had been stopped by each magnet’s force.  The only problem with that?

            Well….

 

            “It’s no use,” Tiffany said, watching the surveillance screens from behind the surveillance technician’s back.  “She still hasn’t been able to fix that car.”  Then she looked at a nearby screen showing the progress of Joey and Olivia.  “And we can’t keep making them fall; if that car doesn’t crush them, Olivia’ll kill him herself once they reach the bottom.”

            And yet more trouble came their way.  “I’ve got more bad news,” announced the central fuel system technician from her seat.  “I…can’t seem to find a way to completely stop the acceleration of the SkyCar.  It’s getting closer and closer to the two falling down the magnets; soon, I’m going to have to let them fall past two magnets…meaning they’ll keep falling without being able to stop.  But, if the driver of that SkyCar can pull those two into the car and then get it to work before it falls to the bottom, then everything’ll be just fine.”

            Obviously, that plan had two flaws. For one, it sounded close to completely impossible.  And two, Olivia wasn’t meant to come into the SkyCar with Joey.  Tiffany knew the difficulty of this…but she also believed in Yoshata’s abilities.  Yoshata can get out of this, and with Joey, too.  All she has to do is fix the car she’s in before it goes too fast for Joey’s safety.

            It was more of a hope than a fact, however.

 

            Joey and Olivia had stopped at the next electromagnet ring.  They were floating around in the plane of magnetic force, already halfway down the building; and the car Yoshata was in was only a couple seconds away.  Things became riskier every time the car fell close to them and the magnets let go of them…it was the kind of thing that people almost never get used to, no matter how many times they experience it.

            They had fallen again, but the SkyCar was showing little sign of slowing down when it passed through the magnet.  It was clear to both Joey and Olivia that it was falling faster and coming closer to them every time it passed through a magnet.  They wouldn’t make it to the bottom of the building at this rate.

            “You’ll never make it!” Olivia cried out to Joey as they fell to the next magnet.  It was a very Olivia-ish way to begin a conversation, it seemed.  She seemed almost happy as she spoke to him from the other side of the magnet ring.  “I might die today, but once you do, it won’t matter!”

            They fell again.  The red car above them was coming their way faster and faster, and there was no way to stop it.

            “How does it feel to know that your own friend will be the one who kills you in the end?” she inquired with that same vicious zeal.

            Joey was too busy trying to hold hold his breath to answer her.

            “Can’t you see it?  You and I both know that car is getting closer and closer to us every time we fall through these magnets; it’s hopeless for you!  And now your daughter and your friend will both have to watch you die!”

            When they had stopped at a lower magnet ring, Joey spoke back during the few seconds they had before they fell: “I’m not going to die!” he shouted.  A second later, they dropped again, taking away his breath when he didn’t expect it.

            He regained his breath once they were at the next magnet ring.  Then he spoke again.  “There’s still a chance of me getting saved!  Can’t you see”—they fell to the next magnet as he spoke, the red SkyCar coming closer to them—“that Yoshata can still start that car up and save me?”

            “Don’t lie to yourself!” she replied as they dropped to the next magnet.  “All your daughter’s doing is prolonging your death, and your friend seems to have some trouble she’ll never be able to fix!

            “And you know what?  She’ll never be able to fix that problem in time, because once you die, she’ll go back to her time living as if you’d never existed!”  They fell again, and she continued.  “Because after this is over, you won’t exist!”

            That short statement said, they fell again.

 

            “No!” screamed Yoshata, pounding her fist against the steering wheel.  She was falling so fast now that she had to take deep breaths to make the falling feeling in her head go away.  Starting the SkyCar up again was, needless to say, terribly frustrating.  “Come on!” she shouted at the car.

            Tiffany, do something! she thought desperately.

 

            Tiffany however, was able to do almost nothing but watch everything go on and hope for the best.  She was still standing behind the surveillance technician, watching the dangerous scene play out.  She guessed that Joey and Olivia had been forced halfway down the building at this point…and she was sure that it wouldn’t be long before they passed through the other half.

            As she had already known, Yoshata was coming closer and closer to hitting Joey and Olivia with the bottom of her SkyCar.  It wasn’t until now that Tiffany began wondering if this was really her fault.  If I hadn’t tried to steal a SkyCar, we might’ve been able to escape in time.  Why didn’t I just find a regular car with the keys still inside it?  There had to be some idiot who left their belongings in an unlocked car!

            Why must this happen? she wondered as she watched Joey and Olivia fall to the next magnet.  Why did it all have to happen like this?  It might’ve all been over now if I had made the right decisions.  And…it would never have happened at all if my father hadn’t begun this in the first place.

            So I guess I’m siding with Olivia as far as what I believe should have happened.  But that doesn’t mean that I want to take the same course of action as she took.  In fact, if she hadn’t gone back in the first place, I wouldn’t have had to go back to stop her.  So…maybe it’s all her fault.

            …No.  I’m responsible for my own actions.  I still made mistakes.  But if she hadn’t started this, then I wouldn’t have followed her, right?  I think that makes sense.  If only she had not decided to do what she did…she shouldn’t have tried to change the past.  And on that same argument, my dad shouldn’t have either.  Time travel has made everything too chaotic, and if—

            “All right!” the central fuel system technician shouted, interrupting Tiffany’s profound thoughts.  “The car’s getting too close; I have to let them drop past two magnets!”

            Tiffany was slung back out of her thoughts when she heard this.  It took her longer than usual to register what was about to be done.  She’s about to drop them past two magnets, she thought, saying two words every second in her head.  That’ll save them for now…but then….

            “No!”  She ran full speed towards the computer where the technician was sitting.  She had to stop her before Joey ended up in circumstances that couldn’t be changed back.  “Don’t do that!”

            But she had spoken only a moment too late.  Back outside, Joey and Olivia were about to fall past the next magnet, and thus fall at a speed to fast for the next magnet to stop.

 

            Falling past the first magnet caused Joey to lose his breath and not be able to regain it.  It also created a strange sensation of being quickly spun around repeatedly; something like weightlessness, as he perceived it.  But this was no enjoyable experience; while they had escaped being crushed by Yoshata’s car, they were now unable to be stopped by any other magnets.  It was the same thing that was happening to Yoshata.

            The first magnet that had tried to hold them had done a pretty good job—they were at safe distance from the falling SkyCar now, and the pulling force had slowed them down enough for them to take another breath—but they had slipped through its grasp.  They began falling again, now gradually picking up speed every time they fell.

            With that being the new situation, Yoshata had to do something quickly; for it was likely that she would only have one chance to save Joey.

 

            Yoshata had given up screaming at the car—it was, after all, just an (annoying) inanimate object—and was now silently trying to fix the car’s messed up flight system.  She had tried nearly everything, from simply jamming the key into the ignition and turning it to kicking the area below the steering wheel.  Nothing had worked, and the rapidly increasing falling speed was raising her adrenaline and giving her some form of nausea at the same time.  Without speaking, she pounded her fist against the steering wheel several times to pacify her frustration.  That was even starting to fail its purpose.  So she started angrily punching everything in the car, ignoring any pain it might have brought her.  Things were quickly becoming hopeless.

            But, as she lowered her right fist to the area above the car’s hidden internal computer, something happened.  It made Yoshata wonder whether she had just gotten lucky or if hitting that area had sparked up the computer.

            The car slowed to a stop in the air, its lower propellers now pushing it up.

 

            “We—we’ve got something here!” came a shout from the other side of the control room.  Tiffany, who was in a state of mixed silence, worry, and wonder, slowly turned to face the direction of the voice.  It had been the surveillance technician speaking again, and around him, there were sounds of relief among the other workers.  Something big had just happened, all right.  Something good.

            She ran over to the screens again to see what was happening.  This time she had to squeeze through other researchers and technicians to get a good view.  And that was definitely worth it, once she saw what was on the screen.

            “The red SkyCar is functioning again,” the surveillance technician pointed out, still with some excitement in his voice, “and it’s driving on downwards…I think—”

            “She’s driving after them!” Tiffany exclaimed, her heart beating even faster.  Her hopes were rising with her excitement; this was it.

            However, even if Yoshata managed to catch Joey in time, what would they do about Olivia?  And what would happen if she were to fall through the time portal at the bottom of the central fuel system?  The questions were connected, and the answers to them might actually be the same thing.

            She walked back over to the central fuel system technician, who was nervously changing switches to the electromagnet rings.  She looked as nervous as Tiffany felt, but she was still able to work the controls with ease.  So, hopefully, she would be able to multitask under these circumstances.

            “Hey,” Tiffany said, getting the technician’s attention.  “Are you in control of that portal at the bottom of the building’s center?”

            The technician didn’t reply for a moment, being too busy concentrating on the magnet switches.  However, she didn’t take too long to give an answer.  “Uh, yeah.  I have a set of controls that change where the portal is directed.”  Then she continued tapping on her keyboard.

            “Will they be able to survive the fall through the portal if they can’t get out of their current situation?”

            The technician didn’t answer right away again, tapping on the keyboard in front of her and pondering what to do at the same time.  By the time she gave her answer, she had figured out Tiffany’s reason for asking about all this.  “I really don’t know,” she concluded.  “It really depends on how much speed they gain as they fall.  They won’t accelerate as fast as the car—the magnetic force will have greater influence on them than it will the car, of course—so they just might make it through the fall.  But I’m afraid that there’s still a pretty good chance that they’ll not make it through alive.”

            Thus, Tiffany found both the good news and the bad news of this moment: Yoshata could control the car again, but Joey and Olivia might end up dying anyway.  Again, it seemed that there always had to be some type of balance between something good happening and something bad happening; things had sort of gone in favor of Tiffany and her friends at the beginning, but at this fateful point in their journey….

            “Your only real guarantee for their survival,” the technician continued, still changing more settings for the central fuel system, “would be if your friend in the car can catch up to them in time.”

            “I know,” Tiffany said, and she turned back to watch the surveillance screens again.

 

            Tiffany’s friend in the car, meanwhile, was racing down the building’s circular gap and going at a nearly vertical angle.  She was over halfway down the skyscraper’s height, and she could see a circular portal in the distance.  In fact, she was sure that she could spot two distant figures falling down to that portal.

            The portal, as she could see from her point, was a circular image of grassy ground.  The portal itself was contained by a rather thin circle of metal, with several different wires going into it and out of it.  Yoshata couldn’t tell how thin the portal was in depth, although she was sure she would be able to tell soon; she was coming closer to the bottom of the building with increasing speed.  She also realized that the portal at the building’s bottom reminded her of the time machine Olivia had trapped her into entering less than a day ago.

            Going faster and faster…the pressure that she faced as the SkyCar dived downward was becoming enormous, and she felt like every breath she took was headed nowhere.  She wanted to stop for a moment but knew she couldn’t, so she kept her foot on the acceleration pedal and took another breath.

            “It won’t be long,” she silently reminded herself.  Joey could be seen pretty clearly now.

 

            Joey looked up to see the red SkyCar coming down towards him in a dangerous-looking dive.  That’s where Yoshata was, and he hoped that the car’s diving wasn’t caused by its malfunction.  He also hoped that, in any case, his drop to the bottom of the building could be slowed down or stopped.  He hoped that Yoshata might be able to reach him before he fell to the portal at the ground.

            One thought flashed through his head as he fell: I think I’m gonna throw up if I make it out of here, ‘cause I can’t do it right now.  And it seemed logical enough; he could tell by now that he and Olivia were falling faster and faster—they must have gone three quarters of the way down the building by this point—and he felt too sick to do anything about it but suffer.  And there was more.

            “Well, what do you say about this?” Olivia shouted to him from across the circle.  She had done this whenever she had the chance; at least she didn’t look as nervous as Joey felt.

            They slowed a bit at the next magnet, and Olivia took another breath.  “You’re gonna die soon, and your friend in the car doesn’t look like she’s in control of things, either!”  She took another breath.  “I mean, I might die too, but I shouldn’t be gone forever, like you.  I must say, I kind of pity you and your friends…it would’ve been better for me to have killed you at the beginning rather than have you face this disappointment.  But as for you”—another breath as they slowed down at the next magnet—“you won’t need to worry about your friend in the car.  She’ll live like this has never happened…and doesn’t that make you feel a little better?”

            “I don’t need you to pity me!” Joey shouted back after a brief pause.  “Yoshata’s coming, and if she gets me, then you’ll be the only one dying!”

            He may have not known, but Olivia was becoming somewhat nervous as that idea became realer and realer.  But no matter; it still seemed far from being possible.  “She won’t make it!” she shouted back to Joey.  “She’ll crush you before she can catch your hand from her car!”

 

            There was still hope for Yoshata to make it, now that she was in control of the car again.  Tiffany now wished that she had been the one who had driven the car; Yoshata was supposed to be in less danger than Tiffany was, but right now she was clearly in a more risky situation.  Of course, in whatever danger she might have been, Yoshata was coming closer to Joey.  Looking at the surveillance screens, Tiffany guessed that Joey and Olivia had fallen the first five sixths of the building’s height.  It had happened quickly, and it was happening quicker every moment.  There weren’t many magnet rings left for them to fall through.  Yoshata’s time, therefore, was very limited.

            Tiffany walked over to the central fuel system technician.  If things went as best as they could, then this technician would have to change the portal’s destination soon.  And that was a pretty big if, even now.

            “How fast can you change the settings on the portal?” Tiffany asked her, speaking a tad quickly but hiding much of her nervousness.

            Once again, the technician didn’t reply with questions.  Questions would have to come later, as they all knew; right now, they had a serious situation on their hands.  She replied without taking much time now.  “It’s just a couple keys away.  And it doesn’t take time like the manual override did.”

            That was good news for Tiffany.  More good news, in fact.  Now she would just wait beside the technician, intently watching the surveillance screens, until everything was in place.

            This is all you, Yoshata…don’t mess up.

 

            And she felt that she was far from that.  Yoshata was still headed down, not stopping for anything (despite her continuing need for a deep breath); she would only stop a short distance from Joey.  And Joey isn’t too far away anymore.  It should be less than a minute—

            Then she heard a screeching sound directly to her left, and Yoshata looked to see the problem.  The SkyCar had moved to the left without her noticing it, and now it was moving against the metal wall of the circular gap.  And if the left door hadn’t been damaged enough by Tiffany already, it had to be on the verge of breaking off now.

            And this is really slowing me down and taking my valuable time….

            Coming upon this terrible thought, Yoshata quickly steered the car to the left and continued driving downwards.  And at that point—as she had almost expected—the door next to her began to move out of place.  Within the next few seconds it came off, going behind the rest of the car as it sped towards Joey.  And with the door, several pens and a medium-sized container for some fragile item—complements of whoever actually owned this car—blew out of the place where the door had been.

            But none of that was of any importance to Yoshata; it wasn’t like she cared about a few pens and an empty container, anyway.  What was important was making up for the time she had just lost.  Joey was only a few magnets away from the bottom, but so was she.

            She slowed the car down for a moment—at its diving speed it wouldn’t stop right away—and took a deep breath as she turned the car right side up.  As it was still slowing down, she let go of the flight control button.  The car fell down, but it was still faster than Joey was.  He was only a couple short yards away, and Yoshata could hear his voice loud and clear.

 

            “Yoshata, help!” he was saying to her, his voice becoming louder and higher as he became more nauseous and afraid.  It wasn’t too hard for hard for Joey to reach up to her; the force he felt as he fell was pushing his arms above him.  He was falling so quickly that he was unable to easily concentrate on thinking and trying to catch Yoshata’s hand at the same time.  There were only a few other magnet rings left—perhaps five, but he was too busy to look and figure it out—and he was passing through another right now….

            …Yet he couldn’t even feel a difference as he passed through.  It may have been credited in part to the freezing wind he was feeling as he dropped towards the bottom, but the main reason was, of course, his nearly unstoppable falling.

            And Olivia, still falling on the other side of the circle, was also becoming nervous.  It couldn’t be possible that Yoshata might actually save Joey, right?  Especially when she had come so close; she hadn’t come this far for nothing, and she knew that if she could just get a firm grip on the car above her, she could make sure that her goal was fulfilled.

            They all passed through the third-to-last magnet, and within a few seconds they would go through the next one.  Yoshata kept holding her left hand out through the place where the driver’s door used to be, waiting not so patiently for Joey to catch hold of it.  She was unaware of the pens and the container raining down after them; there was no time for that.  She ignored her growing need for another deep breath; such things were unneeded at such an important moment as this.

            A very important moment, indeed.  The moment that would decide the lives of Joey and his daughter and their relation to their friend, Yoshata.  If there was a peak of the intensity in their adventure, then this would be it.

 

            It had all began with Joey and Yoshata together, while Tiffany started off alone.  And in this situation they were again: Tiffany, standing without her friends at the top of a building, while the two of them had their own troubles at the bottom of that same building.  The bottom—the past, the year of 2003—and the top—the future, in the distant time of 2023.  Olivia, too, had been in the past—she had gone there first—but just as Tiffany had closely followed her then, she believed that she would do the same now…very soon.

            She stood in the same place, recalling the events of the past four days as she watched the screens across from her.  The images in her head fast-forwarded, and the voices in her memories echoed.  And then she heard her own voice, speaking in no memory but speaking right now.

            “Come on….”

 

            “…Reach for me….”

            Not Tiffany, but Yoshata, reaching out for Joey and looking down at him as he reached forward.

 

            “…Now….”

            Neither Tiffany nor Yoshata, but Joey, reaching back up for a sky blue hand as his feet went past the second-to-last magnet.  And when he caught hold of that hand, it marked the end of the events that kept both him and Olivia alive and suffering.

 

            Joey’s hand was now in hers; Yoshata had done it.  As she looked down and saw that Joey had been rescued just before he had fallen to a terrible fate, she could hear a small chorus singing triumphantly in her head, and her pains caused by Olivia earlier felt practically gone.  Then she hastily remembered to stop the SkyCar where it was.  And in order to completely do that, she had to actually start propelling the car upwards.

            She was utterly relieved—who wouldn’t be?—and was about to pull her friend back into the car, when she heard a sound coming from the back of the car.  The back of the car, of course, was located on the side of the circle opposite where Joey was.

            Olivia.

 

            “She’s still there!” shouted the surveillance technician.  “The other periwinkle lady didn’t fall, and she’s just jumped and grabbed hold of the blue kid—”

            It was all Tiffany needed to hear.  Based on what the technician on the other side of the control room had said, the hardest part of the rescuing procedure was over.  Now all that had to be done was the removal of Olivia, and at this point, Tiffany had figured out the only solution that was available at this point.

            “Turn off the last magnet,” she ordered the technician next to her.

            This time, the worker operating the central fuel system did protest.  Her belief was that Olivia wasn’t yet proven guilty, and that she needed to explain the situation to the workers like Tiffany had been, from her own point of view.  She thought that Olivia’s perspective would give them a better outlook on this strange situation.  She began to speak…but Tiffany had a better idea.

            “Now!”

            And, to make her point clearer, she held her de-neuron gun close again.  Yes, she would still become threatening if anyone disputed her…still the same old crazy girl with some important explanation of her purpose that would come soon.  With that in her mind, the technician did as Tiffany commanded, urged on by the feeling of a de-neuron gun at the back of her head.

            The bottom magnet went off just as soon as she pressed the key designated to do it.  Now, whatever was going to happen would likely involve someone falling.  And that, of course, meant that she would probably have to do something about the time portal.

            “All right, I’m going to need you to do one last thing before my friends and I can all give you our explanations,” said Tiffany.

            Go figure, thought the technician, still staring at her computer screen.

            “Once I tell you to, you need to immediately turn of that portal.  Got it?”

            “Okay, got it…but—”

            “Not right now.  No questions, not just yet.”

            Tiffany turned away from the technician once she saw her sitting at her computer, prepared for the order.  She looked back over at the screens and made out as much detail from one of them as she could.  The figure of Olivia was still holding Joey’s ankle tightly—Now she’s the one dangling at our mercy, thought Tiffany—but she might lose her grip at any moment.

            Obviously, Yoshata would force Olivia to lose her grip; that was part of the plan.

            You know what to do, Yoshata.  It’s time to part with…time to part with Olivia.

            “Goodbye.”

 

            Yoshata uttered the same thing as she concentrated fire into the palm of her free hand.  She threw it down at Olivia, who let go of Joey’s ankle at that point.

            The last any of the three friends saw of Olivia was her falling down past a deactivated magnet ring into a portal, screaming a single small word: No.  And that was probably all the time Olivia had to say anything, anyway; her time in 2023 was over, and would be forever, if the portal would close after her.  Her time in this place was over…and it would now be the same for Joey, Yoshata, and Tiffany.

 

            Tiffany snapped her head back in the direction of the central fuel system computer.  “Turn it off!” she hollered.  “Now!”

            The technician did exactly that, shutting of the universal portal at the bottom of the building.  She did this reluctantly; not only did it seem like shady business (with the crazy girl behind her ordering her to eliminate another unidentified character from the picture), but in closing that portal, a hugely expensive magnet-sensitive fuel pipe was just destroyed beyond repair.  That wasn’t too good for business, even if much of this time travel business was generally kept secret.

            But in any case…everything that the blue girl had wanted was now done.  And after a few acknowledgements of their success, the workers of the control room were ready for an even bigger explanation.  This time, however, they wanted all three of these strange characters to explain what was happening; needless to say, they’d have a lot of explaining to do.

            “All right,” the communications operator said to Tiffany.  He sounded very ready to end all of this and go home.  “Now that that’s done—whatever it just was—we want your friends up here.

 

            He had his way.  Upon giving the order, nearly all security guards returned to their original positions in the building (those on the roof had all regained their movement by now), and a group of about twenty used a maintenance elevator to reach the bottom of the building’s central gap.  They came out, armed and ready for anything—expect the unexpected would’ve been a good slogan for them, considering all that had just happened tonight—and they found a red SkyCar, lightly floating above the metal circle that had, until just recently, served as a border for the universal fuel portal.  The car didn’t look like it would trick them and fly away—the empty place where a door was supposed to be and the several dents on the car’s side kind of blew away that illusion—so they came closer to it, their de-neuron guns ready.

            Then, as if to say I’ve done what you asked and I’m finished for good, the red SkyCar malfunctioned for the last time and dropped a short way, landing on the metal portal container with some degree of lightness.  Two Yoshi kids stepped out, one wearing a guard uniform, the other wearing painful-looking scrapes.  The one with the uniform on was a deep blue color; the other had a shade of sky blue skin.  She also had a poof of goofy-looking hair on her head.

            But this group of twenty guards hadn’t come here to look at these two.  They were here to lead these two to the authorities in the control room, for reasons they didn’t really know or care about.  They did what they came for, and the two kids hadn’t given them trouble.  So now they let them have it their way, after putting them through so much trouble first…well, whatever the reason for their actions was, it probably would’ve confused them anyway.

            It was probably one of those things that the more science-inclined people upstairs would understand.

 

            They soon arrived at the top floor, moved along and watched cautiously by the guards around them.  Joey quickly recognized the room as the elevator doors gave him a view of it; he had been here very recently, of course.  Except this time, he was being escorted by guards instead of chased by them.  It was a pretty nice change, and now all he needed was some good sleep.  Midnight was behind them, after all.

            Yoshata, on the other hand, was still quite awake (especially due to the experience she just had), and she had never been in this room before.  The room itself didn’t seem very important to her.  No, it was the room at the end of the hall ahead that caught her eye.  Because behind the glass doors of that room, she could see Tiffany.  And she was sure that Tiffany was smiling at her from behind the door.

            Yes, she thought, as if responding to what she assumed Tiffany was thinking.  It’s over, as far as Olivia goes.  Now it’s up to you to do all the convincing for us.  And that shouldn’t be too hard, Tiff…after all, you did convince me and Joey to follow you when we didn’t even know your name.

            Yes, but that had been the beginning.  And beginnings are often much easier to work with than endings.

 

            “Good,” began the communications operator once Joey and Yoshata were in the control room.  “We have all three of you.”  Following that, he had the guards leave the room and go back to their regular posts, then turned back to Joey, Tiffany, and Yoshata.

            “And none of you look like you’ve had a very safe time around this area.  That’s just one of many questions you’ve posed to us when you entered this building.  I don’t know if you realize what damage you might have caused us here…but if you can explain yourselves coherently and end up convincing the authorities here that your story really is true, then we’ll act as if this never happened.  If what your friend here has begun telling us is real”—he pointed to Tiffany—“then I’m sure we’ll all understand a bit more regarding your reason for being here.

            “You have a story to tell us; however, regarding the stuff that’s just happened…I think we should take you to the people upstairs.  They’d understand this whole idea even more than we would, and if anyone can verify the truth in your story, then it’d be those guys.  I’ll take you up to them, and then you can tell everyone your reason for being here and doing what you’ve done.

            “I can’t promise you that this’ll be easy, and it might take a good while.  But I think you all definitely owe us an explanation.  So you tell us; we’d like to hear this story.”

 

-End of Chapter 10