"You ready, Kyle? This last one's easy... I promise."
He squinted at her, suspicious. What, are you going to drop me off a cliff and tell me to land?
Sal laughed. "Not buying it, eh? Well, I don't blame you. I mean it this time, though. All you need to do, is go home. It's your last test, and one I'm sure you can manage."
Finally: escape! "So, I guess this starts with me envisioning something, right?" he said, pushing the heavy chair backward and stretching his stiff legs.
"Good guess!" giggled the old woman. "That's all this is, really. Just like the vase; just imagine your room as you know it, and feel yourself slipping there. Oddly, this is always the hardest lesson to teach. You know, I've found students entangled in tree branches, stranded on Mt. Fuji, and one particular girl managed to accidentally discover an underground ceremonial chamber in Antarctica." A chuckle, dry and hoarse wracked her body. She tilted her head, smiling at other memories unvoiced. "But you, I think, will be a natural."
Kyle closed his eyes and began to concentrate.
"—but wait a moment, please. Before you go," interrupted Sal, voice serious and commanding. "Never sleep again in Tammond Dale. I've seen enough of your journal and your own confusion to last a lifetime." Shaking her head; disgusted. "I don't care if you hightail to Hawaii or a resort in the Balkans, just never lose consciousness anywhere in that accursed town." She spat the last. "You'll forget all this, like it was a dream, and you can't afford that. Not now."
Kyle sighed. "So why can't you help me? You or anyone here is better at this"—arms swing wide, fingers wiggling like a circus magician readying hocus pocus—"than I am. If it's so dangerous, why do I have to do it?" His arms cross then, a truculent pout lining his face.
"A lot of rules guide this universe of ours, Kyle. You can bend a few, but just like that scalpel," she nods toward the sheared handle occupying his vacant position at the table," balance is the one True Law of everything." Her gaze wilts to the ground, all mirth melting from her eyes. "I'm sorry."
She doesn't know! Jesus. She doesn't know what would happen if they helped! Kyle scrutinized the remains of the scalpel, then a not insignificant period examining own bandaged hand.
Sal saw all this and nodded. You got it, kid, said the silence between them.
Kyle's composure became stoic, as if marching off to his own funeral, full of duty and purpose. "Don't worry 'bout me. I read my journal tonight, and I think I know what to do, or at least where to start." He gave a thumbs-up and a toothy smile.
Vanished.
Sal blinked. "Now that," she said to the empty room, "went better than I thought."
"What's the status, Jack?" said a hollow voice echoing down a vast hallway.
"Sal, I'll bes' wait 'til you can see't."
Interesting. No report? Jack? Not good news. Then again, when had recent days held anything other than grief for both of them? Her footsteps clicked surgically on the marble, bringing her closer to the newest catastrophe Jack's intrepid manner—surreal in its uncanny accuracy—uncovered.
The moment Sal entered the main analysis chamber, her heart fell.
Smoke. Burned circuitry.
"Tell me," she whispered, too tired to raise an outcry against the destruction.
"T's Duality, Sal. Dead. Damndest thin' too—"
"Kyle!" she cursed.
"S'cuse me, mam?" Jack wondered, confused at her outburst.
Supporting her head with a left palm against her eyes, she flicked her right hand toward him. Continue.
"Duality holler'd 'bout a 'Discontinuity Spike' on End Outreach and damn near every 'larm wen' off t'wonce. S'all gone, Sal. Melted slag from relay t'core." Jack seemed decades older then, saddled with a yoke of weariness beyond mere age.
"Jesus... I brought him here. Had to train him before it got worse." Was this all really Kyle's fault? Duality couldn't predict his influence in Tammond Dale, but this? "I knew he was powerful, but..."
He nodded. "Thought ya might 'done. Can't say's I blame ya. Lord knows he need't. Was a chance ya had't take."
Sal shuddered uncontrollably, remembering how she trained Kyle. The computer was fried: all safeties down. She had fired a gun at a completely unprotected novice, and he'd instinctually deflected the bullet anyway. And if he hadn't? Bullet hovering inches from his nose? Brain tartare.
"We gonna die, Sal?" Jack asked, a tinge of compassion lurking in his eyes. "Y'know, without fields'n'such to maintain The End's time bubble."
"I didn't build it, Jack." she replied, eyes peeking over her index finger. "Oh sure, I spruced it up; brought in some fancy electronics; made it homey." Her left hand slid away from her eyes and rested on the remains of a console. "We won't die, and The End will remain right where I found it."
"Diffrn't kind'o'dead, then," he offered, understanding the situation.
"In the water, old friend. Until we fix this"—gestures to various, still smoking terminals dotting the ruined control-room—"Kyle and Tammond Dale will play-out their part in history without prying eyes." A wry smile worked its way across her face. "We needed a break anyway. Now if everything ends, we won't see it coming. Why worry?"
Jack wagered a dry chortle. "S'pose we been fret'n' a tad." He swung his head in a long arc around the room and blew out a pronounced sigh. "I hate computers. Ice-cream?"
"I know just the place," she said.