No time like the present...

[Krastin]

The bulkhead blew out, showering the group ahead with debris and sealing their fate. Rounding an alternative corner, the panicked nanomage let his hand touch a sheet of metal for but a moment. It's agonizing heat seared the top layer of skin from his hand as he peeled it away with a scream.

His footsteps seemed to slow as he ran down what was essentially a dead end corridor, he watched the wall ripple and the air sizzle as a pocket of unstable time ruptured open, showing the past, the present and the future of that one particular space in the ship.

Ten Minutes earlier.
SBTS Lacrea.

"The convergence matrix is overloading. Abandon the jump!" Commander Dartalia slapped her hand down on the emergency stop, the vents on either side of the ship bursting open and dumping an incredibly amount of heat out into open space.

"We're already partially mid-phase. I can't get a fix on the Chronius Array!" Lieutenant Ovarin ran his hands over his console in a furious manner, retrying the connection near on a hundred times in a few seconds. "Commander, I recommend we fire up the jump to five minutes ago. See if we can't force our own resync."

Dartalia took a moment to look at the Lieutenant. "Lieutenant Frabbas. Do as Pietor said, fire up the drive with the vents open."

Frabbas began entering in the exact time co-ords. "The core won't reach critical temperature with the vents open."

"It will if you couple the Convergence Matrix directly to the core. Shunt the heat from one to another." Bronzanti, the ship's tactical officer stepped out of one of the internal grid units. He had barely digitized in his glorious silvery-gleaming form before interfacing with one of the consoles. Both of his hands reshaping in a fluid like form to allow him to engage with two of the ports. "I'm making the preparations now."

The Commander nodded, the button was pressed and sirens rung out across the ship. "Temporal Destabilization at critical. The Convergence Matrix is...damaged." Bronzanti's head turned at an unhealthy angle. "I am afraid that repair is not recommended. I do have one recommendation."

Dartalia made for her chair and entered a command code. "We're at 96% phase. If we drop out now, we'll be destroyed."

Ovarin looked at Frabbas who both in turn nodded. "Recommend abandon ship Commander. Take the Chronexaline Escape Pods."

"Do it. All hands, abandon ship via CEPs." The Commander ordered, watching as the bridge emptied via all the grid interfaces.

"Lieutenant Stop." Bronzanti clasped at his shoulder as the grid interface shorted out infront of them. "You wouldn't have made it through in time." The two searched for an exit. "Come with me!" Bronzanti went for one of the vents and punched through it, wrenching the entire bulkhead off the wall. "Follow me" Bronz said, simply stepping off the bridge into the darkness.

Pietor stepped off the bridge and fell in a gut-wrenchingly fast fall that made him want to vomit. Just as he felt he was going too fast a metallic arm reached out and grabbed him, in a rapid motion it tossed him out and down a corridor, transferring his vertical fall into a horizontal throw that propelled him face first. "I hate yoooooou!" Pietor wanted to vomit as Bronzanti caught up in an astonishingly fast run. Snatching the Lieutenant out the air the pod infront of them opened up as the wall ruptured. Bronz kicked off the wall and pushed on round a different corner.

Two minutes later

The pod burst out the side of the shimmering Sol Banking ship and where most of the pods were flashing out of the timeline in a burst of white light, one pod glowed red and exited the phase-space that the Lacrea occupied.

"We're going down!" Bronzanti bleated. "Chronexaline levels at zero. We're entering an ionosphere!"

Pietor headbutted the console due to the sheer turbulence. "I can't fire up the entry thru-..." it went dark for the Lieutenant as he passed out.

[Krastin]

Omni-Trade
May 20th, 29488
13:45 RST

"It's not like I wasn't planning this," The man spoke, while gazing into his comm unit, accessing the nearby Personnel Register. He turned and looked at his new work colleague.

"P, this is the thing. It is an awfully forward move to offer such a large sum as a partnership the first day on the job." She shrugged, "Sure, I get you're an associate, but you need to take things easy, Rome wasn't built in a day." she joked.

"Ever heard of a silent partner? That's all I want, just a return on my investment without the aggro of being truly involved."

Jayne Smith shrugged, "I suppose, but still. What about all the senior associates that are waiting in line? Pietor, it's the corporate thing to do, but it's not nice."

"Omni-Tek isn't nice, you know that." He tapped his access code into the Personnel Register. ::Welcome Pietor Ovarin, Associate; Omni-Legal:: He nodded approvingly.

"So, lunch?" Jayne smiled

"Where's good to eat around here?"

She howled, "In Trade, nowhere. Omni-Med's Food Standards are far too high for this place. Omni-Ent's our next best place."

"Then away we go."

The two of them headed for the whompahs and Pietor grew a grimacing look on his face. "Everything alright?" Jayne asked. "Fine," he replied. "Just not a massive fan of whompahs. Mind if I go first?" he asked. She paused, giving him an almost condescending look. "You do know the system can handle us both at the same time?" "Oh I know, but, it's a habit."

Sure enough, she let him go first and he passed through the whompah unscathed, shimmered slightly on the other side and as his body finished recompiling she appeared beside him. "See, not so bad." she smiled.

"I'll say." He looked at his comm unit, reading a percentage of 85% and climbing. - Too close, he thought.

"So, where to?" Pietor grinned widely. "I'mma starving."

"Burgers?" Jayne pointed towards the nearby Bronto Burger stand.

"Can't, I'm on the Prime diet." He patted his stomach with a sad look on his face, red meat was definitely a no-no.

She paused for a moment, looking down across Omni-Ent then down a side road.

"Liquid lunch?" Jayne grinned, knowing that several bars weren't far from where they were.

"That'll do." He smiled, watching as she walked on ahead. The smile broke the second she was out of range and then he rolled his eyes. This was going to be interesting.

"Halt citizens." The bark came from an Omni-Pol patrol. "Identification chips please."

Jayne looked at Pietor who looked back at her. "Sure." She said, proudly showing hers attached to her shoulder. One of the Omni-Pol officers scanned it and nodded, helmet disguising anything in the way of facial expressions.

"And yours, Sir?" They turned to him, he pondered for a moment. "Implanted, feel free to scan." He held his wrist forward.

"Where are you headed?" they asked, while scanning Pietor's arm.

"A local bar for some sustenance." Jayne commented.

"Are you on company time?" They continued with the questions while one nodded at the readout from Pietor's arm.

"God no, Sir. Regulation six-one-five prevents that.", Pietor interjected.

"We're autoclocked anyway. There'll be no misappropriation of company time from Omni-Legal. That's for sure." Jayne gave a patriotic, almost patronising, closed fist arm swing.

The Omni-Pol officers looked at Pietor, Jayne and then each other. "Everything here seems to be in order. Thank you, Mr Ovarin." They packed up their ID equipment and carried on their patrol.

"That was a bit of a dick move, no?" Pietor looked at Jayne as they headed for the bar.

"They do that a lot around here. They're on the lookout for cyborgs. Because of course, Omni-Tek ID is so hard to counterfeit."

"Is it?"

* * *

Borealis, Rubi-Ka
May 20th, 29488
18:35 RST

Winston Kuiper smiled at the barman, taking his small glass of coffee and sipping it slowly, precariously balancing the taste against annihilating his tongue from the scalding heat.

"Sir, there appears to be a problem with your account."

Winston put the coffee down and sighed, "All over four credits?" He reached into his pockets and pulled out one, one and a half. Two. He began scrambling into the other pockets, three. Three sixty. Three Ninety-Nine. Four-twenty. He handed over the entire mass of pocket change, much to the barman's dismay. The barman slowly and painfully counted each one, sliding back nineteen individual sub-credits and what appeared to be a nut, the bolt nowhere to be seen. "I'm sorry," Winston said, picking up the coffee. "I'm not normally like th-." He caught his foot on the edge of a table leg and in rebalancing himself, caught the table, but let the coffee go. The plasteel cup hit the floor and bounced, the coffee however was not so fortunate as it redecorated the glass floor of the bar.

He turned, briefly raised a finger to ponder, considering another coffee. "Fuck it, I'm leaving."

"Sembly," he spoke into his comm.

"Yes, Winston?" came the reply from the other end.

"My account seems to be blocked, could you isolate the cause and find out why, please?"

"Have you spent it all on shoes?" she quipped.

"Well I certainly haven't spent it all on dental treatment, that's for sure.", he joked, rubbing his facemask.

"Winston. I believe I've found the source of the problem." Sembly came back a few minutes later, as he was pondering whether to take the grid or head for the Jobe Whompah.

"Yes?" he replied.

"You?"

Winston paused. "Me?"

"Yes, you."

"No, wait. I don't get it. How can I be the problem?"

Sembly paused, perhaps struggling to explain it to him. "Your access code was used to access your account in the exact same time frame, but in Omni-Tek territory. Since you were using the same code, your account assumed fraud and engaged interlocks on the second transaction."

"...which was mine, yes?"

"Both were yours, Winston."

Winston sighed. Paused. Breathed. "The transaction that was attempted in Borealis to buy a single, solitary coffee which I then tossed across the bar?"

"That sounds wasteful Winston. But yes, that transaction was blocked."

He rolled his eyes, folded his arms, wrapping his cloak tight around him and headed for the whompah to Jobe. "So what transaction was approved?"

"Six point eight million credits worth of Omni-Tek weapons."

Winston broke into a small jog towards the whompah, getting out of the crowds so he could hear her better. "One more time Sembly, just so I can hear that."

"Six point eight million credits of Omni-Tek weapons."

"...aaand you didn't think to block that one?"

"Winston, I'm not the one blocking your account, it's the Clan Banking System." Sembly interjected, almost feisty.

"Right, so I can buy Omni-Tek weapons of mass destruction. But according to CBS I can't buy a fucking coffee."

"Coffee burns cause approximately 40% of all visi-.."

"Shut up Sembly. I don't need babble right now. Where are these weapons?"

"Unknown."

"Where is the individual who used my access code?" He said, stepping through the whompah to Jobe with his face scrunched and his eyes firmly shut.

"Assembly HQ."

"Riiight, and they are?"

"Accessing my mainfr-... Oh."

"Yes. Oh indeed, Sembly. I need you to do two things and two things only. Access my and Bronz's database, and run Protocol Norway-Summer on their location and initiate a site-to-site grid transport for me, straight to them."

"Winston, Norway-Summer will cause damage to the HQ's environmental systems. It is not designed to instantly acclimate to those sort of temperatures."

"Do it Sembly, and I promise an upgrade as soon as I get a chance."

* * *

Assembly HQ
May 20th, 28488
18:41 RST

Pietor Ovarin stood over the console, entering information. He had accessed Sembly, Bronz's database and was also tied into a remote Omni-Tek system. "There, that's the account tied in. Now to refine the depositing parametre-" He froze solid, almost as if held in some sort of stasis. The room had been plunged rapidly into -140 degree temperatures, the oxygen sucked from the room and pretty much everything instantly encased in ice.

"Thank you, Sembly." Winston Kuiper reassembled in the lab, an emergency site to site grid-transport from Borealis had made him feel a little queasy, but was no doubt necessary, considering his access code was used twice in two locations at the same time. "Confirm successful running of Norway-Summer please Sembly?"

"Successful run complete." Sembly chimed in, her voice a warm welcome in the bitter cold. Winston cast a shield around himself, deflecting some of the cold from the room. "So who do we ha-..." He paused, gaping at the person frozen next to the console. Although the oxygen had been sucked from the room and Winston was breathing the oxygen stored in his facemask, he still let out an audible gasp. "No way."

"Sembly, access Bronz's database and check for temporal incursions. In fact. No. Scan for the Chronius Array."

"I am detecting no known signatures."

Winston paused and looked at himself, frozen at the console. "Did I kill myself?" he asked, unable to see any heat signatures whatsoever.

"No heat signatures have been detected, Winston."

"What? At all?" Winston stepped closer and poked the frozen version of himself. The wall sparked slightly off in the corner of the lab, the environmental systems still struggling from such a rapid temperature change.

"Not a single one, Winston." Sembly came back.

"Sembly, locate Bronz."

She paused for a moment, "I am unable to locate his signature, he is masking his locator beacon."

"I knew it. You utter inconsiderate and unthoughtful bastard!" Winston headed for the particle accelerator across the room.

"Are you talking to me, Winston?" Sembly asked, almost sounding hurt at the notion.

"No, Sembly, I'm talking to Bronz." He unclasped the safety locks on the particle accelerator and spun it up, aiming it at the frozen version of himself.

"Sembly, fire up the particle accelerator. Low yield pulse." He entered a few commands into the side.

"Firing in five, four, three, two, one." Sembly counted down. The particle accelerator erupted with a pulse that took the frozen version of himself clean off its feet and slammed it into the opposite wall. The resulting smash shattered what appeared to be a holographic image of himself and the robotic Bronzanti tumbled to the floor, rudely awoken by the pulse."

"You whaaaat?" Bronz gave a blank expressionless stare, the same blank expressionless stare he always gave; for every reaction. "You could have killed me!"

"You could have had me locked up for not paying for a coffee!" Winston retorted.

"Well, you shouldn't leave your bank code to 1234, should you!" Bronz argued.

"That's no excuse to copy my look and go on a fucking shopping spree of Omni-Tek weapons, is it?!"

"I needed something simple to copy."

"Something simple!?" Winston engaged the particle accelerator again, another pulse flying out and blowing Bronz back once more.

Bronz clambered back to his feet again as Winston made his way over. "I'm something simple?!" he repeated.

"Well." Winston pulled out his gun and turned it on its side, flicking some of the switches and twisted the barrel round. The energy cartridge on the side turned electric-blue. He looked up over the frame of his glasses as he stared at Bronz. "You wouldn't." said Bronz and twisted his head in morbid curiosity.

"Wouldn't what? Shoot you? Not directly." Winston stepped to one side, turned and shot over his shoulder, the pulse charged up the particle accelerator and again Bronz was thrown across the room.

Bronz picked himself up again, "Wait. I have something you need to see, Lieutenant. It's an interesting surveillance footage of Ms Godfray and her man."

Winston raised an eyebrow. "That sounds awfully personal, Bronz. What have you done with it?"

"Well it looked like a personal attack on her by Mr Kirklin." Winston paused at Bronz's words. "So you've...."

"Forwarded it to the Sentinels." Bronz beamed.

"You what?" Winston turned on his heels. "Wait. No. Cross reference the video with Rubi-Kan mating rituals."

Bronz paused a moment. "Ah. Lieutenant we have a problem."
"No. You! You have a problem! Seal the recording away within your personality matrix, and send a recall notice to the Sentinels immediately." He snapped, heading for the indoor whompah.

"Who's going to tell Ms Godfray?" Bronz hurried after.

"You are." He slipped in the last two words before disintegrating into the whompah.

[Ragunn]

[Hahahaa! Brilliant! I like the way you write, especially the interaction. Poor long-suffering Winston!]