Zack’s ears were still ringing from the sound of all the rent and twisted metal crashing to the ground. He saw something move out of the corner of his eye. Something instinctively told him to move. As he did so, something with a long mane of dark hair, a feral face, skin like fish scales and gaping red gills suddenly burst from among the scattered pallets of tools and building supplies. It was Karmi. She uttered a feral snarl as Zack interposed himself between Karmi and Melissa. Karmi barrelled into Zack. The two of them tumbled to the bare concrete floor. Karmi snarled again. She brandished her long slender talons and slashed at Zack’s face. Without thinking, Zack reached out and grabbed for her wrist. She was much stronger than she looked, he realized. Her pointed claws were only a few millimetres from his eyeballs and then shadow fell over them and she was being pulled off of him. Cavendish stuck out a hand. Zack took it and the tall time agent pulled him to his feet.
“Are you alright?” asked Cavendish.
Zack took a deep steadying breath. He was suddenly aware of the rapid beating of his heart. It was the second time in less than fifteen minutes that someone had asked him that, he realized. Zack nodded. He suddenly felt slightly unsteady. “I-uhhh-yeah, Cavendish, l’m fine.”
The time agent looked sceptical, but before he could say anything, they were both distracted by the sounds of a violent scuffle. They both turned to find Hiro and Wasabi grappling with Karmi. Hiro was flat on his back. He had Karmi’d arms pinned behind her back and his legs were wrapped around her waist in a leg lock, but she was struggling violently. Zack thought she looked to on the verge of wriggling out of Hiro’s grip. He grunted as she fought his hold. Wasabi was circling Hiro and Karmi as the wrestled on the ground with his plasma sword in his hand.
Cavendish gently pulled Zack away from Hiro who was still grappling with Karmi. “Come on, Zack,” he said. “Milo’s definitely here somewhere. We need to find him before someone gets hurt.”
“How do we do that?” asked Zack. “We know Milo’s here somewhere, but how do we find him?”
Cavendish looked thoughtful for a moment as he pondered the question, then an idea came to him. He gestured for everyone to stop moving and gather round. “We need to find Milo before he hurts himself or someone else.”
“How do we do that?” asked Melissa,”when we don’t know where to look.”
“We need to spread out,” replied Cavendish. “We’ll be able to cover more ground that way-.”
“Cavendish,” interrupted Dakota, “are you sure that’s a good idea? Look at what that Karmi kid almost did to Zack.”
The tall time agent nodded. “You are quite correct, Dakota,” replied Cavendish, “We’ll break into groups. Milo is definitely not himself at the moment.” He paused for second or two. “We can’t be certain that he’ll recognize us. It might not be safe to be alone with him in his current state.”
They divided into groups and fanned out into the maze of steel and concrete. The building site was mostly dark. Here and there light from the surrounding buildings left pools of neon light amidst the shadows. Zack had found himself paired with Dakota. The time agent’s sunglasses had reacquired their e
electronic green glow. The light from Zack’s flashlight seemed feeble in the semi-darkness. They threaded their way among the bare steel and concrete. Tool carts and pallets of building materials cast weird shadows everywhere. They were walking quietly and slowly, listening for the slightest sound. Zack felt as though Milo’s backpack was weighing heavily on his shoulders again. He surreptitiously tried to shrug Milo’s backpack higher on to his shoulders to bear the weight the better.
Dakota seemed to notice because he turned to Zack and said, “you’ve wearing that since yesterday afternoon. Let me take it.”
Zack shook his head, somewhat defiantly. “No, I’ll be OK,” he said.
“Are you sure?” asked Dakota, “that looks heavy.”
Zack shook his head again. “It’s not that bad,” he insisted.
It was Dakota’s turn to shake his head. “Zack,” he said, “you don’t need to prove anything to anyone,” and before Zack could stop him, Dakota took Milo’s backpack and slung it over his shoulders. The time agent felt the weight settle on to his shoulders. Fertilize me, Dakota thought to himself, Milo must have packed forty pounds of gear.
Zack felt his shoulders lighten as their burden was lifted. He suddenly and unaccountably felt as if he was naked. Calm down, Zack, he thought to himself. Dakota is here and he has Milo’s backpack. Zack drew in a breath and let it out slowly. Everything’s fine, he told himself, except that your best friend was kidnapped by a creepy corporation and turned into a weird mutant, he reminded himself. And you have no idea if he can be-. With some difficulty, Zack stopped himself from finishing the thought that had been in his head. No! Zack thought to himself emphatically. We are going to find Milo, he’s going to be alright and we’re going to go home. He looked around. On the other side of the building site, Zack could the the electronic green glow Cavendish’s night vision googles. In the other direction, the semi-darkness was cut by a cone of light from Ferb’s flashlight. Phineas was using the flashlight function on his phone.
Zack and Dakota stopped to listen again. Zack thought he heard a shuffling noise. He turned to Dakota and started to say, “I think I heard something,” but before he could get the words out, several things happened at once. The hair on the back of Zack’s neck stood up in warning, at the same moment, his flashlight died. As the darkness descended on them, Zack heard Dakota say, “hey! What the-!”
“What happened?” Zack whispered. He was speaking in a low voice, trying to listen for the shuffling noise again.
Dakota shook his head. “I’m not sure,” he said. “My glasses just went out.”
“Forget to recharge the battery?” asked Zack.
Dakota shook his head. “No, I-,” a sudden thought struck him. “Zack, have you got your phone?”
Zack nodded. “Yeah. Why?”
“Check your battery”
Zack fished his phone out of his pocket. He tapped his password into his screen and immediately got a low battery warning. “The battery in my phone is almost dead. I had almost a full charge a couple of hours ago.”
“Has your phone ever been affected by Murphy’s Law before?”
Zack thought for a second or two. “I don’t think so,” he replied. “Milo breaks his phone a couple times a week, but-,”
“Turn off your flashlight,” said Dakota suddenly.
Zack was confused, “What, why?”
“Turn it off, “ said Dakota again, “and we might be able to-.” He didn’t get a chance to finish he sentence. Zack’s flashlight died of its own accord. At the same moment he heard a feral snarl, the sound of metal scraping on bare concrete and Dakota shouting, “DUCK!” Zack felt himself being pushed to the floor and Dakota landing on top of him as a tool cart went sailing through the air and landed with a loud crash somewhere in the darkness. Zack felt himself being pulled to his feet as Dakota rolled off of him. By the time Zack had got to his feet, his eyes had adjusted to the semi-darkness and he spied a familiar hazy blue aura.
The hazy glow of Milo’s negative probability field looked brighter to Zack, but he wasn’t sure if that was just his imagination or not. From where he was standing, Zack could see the others turning in reaction to the noise and a sudden realization struck him. They were all about to converge on Milo at once, leaving him cornered. In his current state, Milo not be capable of recognizing his closest friends. Somebody could get hurt, thought Zack.
“Dakota-,” Zack began.
But the time agent seemed to have reached the same conclusion at almost the same time, because he motioned to Zack and said, “c’mon, this way.” They picked their way through the various obstacles and somehow managed not to walk into anything in the dark. A couple times Zack checked his phone, in the hope that he might be able to text Melissa or Amanda to tell them to give Milo some space, but his battery was still dead. He guessed that the AR functions in Dakota’s sunglasses were still disables as well. They rounded a corner, paused and looked around. They couldn’t see anything.
“Have we lost Milo?” Zack whispered.
Dakota nodded. “I think so,” he said. “We should retrace our steps and-.” He stopped suddenly. He had thought he had heard the sudden sharp intake of breath and the sound of shuffling footsteps. At the same moment the time agent suddenly felt all the hair on the back of his neck stand up as though an electric current were running through his body and a split second later a ghostly tendril of probability knocked Dakota off his feet. Dakota was momentarily winded and he saw stars as the back of his head hit the concrete. Zack saw a familiar silhouette and leapt over Dakota’s prone form.
Heedless of his surroundings, Zack started running, dodging through the maze of tool carts, spools of cable, bundles of piping and pallets of building supplies. It’s time to end this, he thought. He back peddled suddenly as a bundle of pipes suddenly burst from its strapping and had to sidestep quickly to avoid an out of control tool cart. Zack just barely avoided being buried under an avalanche of cement mix as he came around a corner. Zack paused momentarily. Not far away from Milo were several large tanks of propane. They were leaning against a thick concrete pillar. Ordinarily, that wouldn’t really matter, but Zack reasoned that Milo and propane was probably a really bad mix. He took a deep breath. Cavendish had warned them all that Milo might not recognize them and might be more dangerous than usual be around. At some point we have to try to talk to him, thought Zack with a mental shrug might as well be now.
“Milo?” asked Zack. His voice seemed extra loud in the semi-darkness. “Are you in there, buddy?” Zack stood very, very still, hardly breathing, wondering what Milo would do.
Milo’s head snapped around at the sound of his name. His eyes glowed luminously in the semi-darkness and Zack suddenly felt uneasy. This may have been a very bad idea, he thought. Milo opened his mouth and a deep guttural snarl came out of Milo’s mouth. “Zack,” Milo growled, “help me.” At the same moment, Zack was shocked to discover that he could almost understand what Milo was saying.
He suddenly realized that his heart was beating very, very quickly. Zack’s mouth was dry and he swallowed. His eyes flicked from Milo to the tanks of propane and acetylene. I’ve got to get him away from those, he thought. “Yeah, buddy,” he said slowly, “we want to help you. I’ve got Melissa and Amanda and Phineas and-.” From somewhere to his left he heard footsteps. It hadn’t occurred to Zack that the others would hear all the crashes and bangs of the various thrown and falling objects and come running. Milo was bathed in a cone of yellow light from a flashlight. Zack tried to wave off Melissa, to give Milo some space, but it was too late, the moment of connection was broken.
Milo turned and with a wordless roar, he lunged at Melissa. Zack was already moving. He was only vaguely aware of Cavendish, Dakota, Amanda, Phineas and Ferb. He barrelled into Milo as he was about to collide with Melissa and the two boys tumbled to the bare concrete. At the exact same moment, the concrete floor gave way and Zack suddenly realized that he falling. In the same instant, he heard a loud hiss and a series of metallic bangs, along with numerous shouts and cries, and the propane and acetylene tanks burst and went rocketing all over the place. He heard a dull crump and an orange flash as one of the acetylene cylinders exploded somewhere in the distance. Then the floor of the sewer tunnel beneath rushed up to meet them.