Doc stood in the middle of the wrecked mat-trans chamber and looked around glumly, unable to decide where to begin.
Technically, all he had to do was clean up a little and pretend he was repairing and upgrading equipment according to Exo’s bidding. Ankh had told him that was exactly what was expected of him—that he put on a good front long enough for Ankh’s plan to come to fruition.
But Doc wanted to do so much more. He was surrounded by devices that, if operating correctly, could enable him to escape. As much as he hated the side effects of travel by mat-trans, he knew it could whisk him away to another location far from the Shift.
The mat-trans could also make escape possible in a less direct way. If tampering with the mat-trans had given the Shift its metamorphic properties, perhaps further tampering would provide some degree of control over the region’s transformations, just as Exo hoped. Such control might stir things up enough to give Doc the diversion he needed to break away from the shifters.
There was just one problem with these possibilities: Doc lacked the mastery of the tech that he needed to make them happen.
Stepping over scattered parts and debris, Doc made his way to the control panel set into the wall. Clearly, it had been modified; he could tell that much by comparing what he saw with his memories of other mat-trans control panels. Sections of the panel had been pulled apart, circuit boards reconfigured and rerouted, new dials and switches wired in. A digital readout had been attached above the main panel, and a keyboard had been stuck to the panel’s front edge.
It was all, oh, so familiar, yet very different from all the other mat-trans panels he’d seen. If only he understood the purpose of the modifications and how to manipulate them.
Perhaps, it occurred to him, guesswork would be sufficient. Maybe fiddling with these new controls would cause enough mayhem that he could get away without being stopped.
Or it might blow up the mat-trans and kill Doc in the process. That was possible, too.
Doc reached for one of the jury-rigged dials, then hesitated. “Hell’s bells.” Should he wait and see how Ankh’s plan played out instead? Though Doc had zero faith that Ankh was any more benevolent than Exo, perhaps he would at least keep his word to help Doc regain his freedom.
Doc pulled back, realizing it would be better to err on the side of patience, but then, on impulse, he shot out a hand and tweaked a single dial, turning it a few degrees clockwise.
He held his breath, but nothing happened. There was no detectable change in any of the equipment in the room, and the fizzing in the back of his head didn’t get any stronger.
Doc turned the dial again, with the same result, then flipped one of the jury-rigged switches. Still, nothing changed.
Next, he pressed a red button in the upper-left corner of the modified keyboard. Again, there was no change in the mat-trans chamber.
At first. After a moment, though, lights in the floor flashed to life. The bright circles they cast were visible around the silver disks—those that weren’t completely buried by debris.
At the same time, a shrill squealing erupted throughout the room, so high-pitched and loud that it drove Doc to cover his ears with his hands. Then the digital readout above the control panel lit up, displaying the number 30 in red digits. As Doc watched, the number counted down to 29, 28, 27, 26, 25…
Heart racing, Doc jabbed the red button on the keyboard again, holding it down hard. The countdown, squealing and lights all shut off at once, leaving him surrounded by silent stillness once more.
A moment later, he heard someone clearing his throat from the direction of the doorway.
Turning, Doc saw an unfamiliar face, a crimson-skinned shifter male wearing gray coveralls and an ancient black baseball cap with a yellow letter P embroidered above the bill.
“Hello?” Doc attempted a casual smile and tone, as if there’d been no squealing, lights and cryptic countdown a moment ago. “May I help you?”
“Other way around.” The mutie’s voice was low and raspy. “Ankh sent me. I’m your assistant now.”
“I see.” Doc nodded. “And your name is…?”
“Fixie,” the shifter said. “I fix things.”
Doc narrowed his eyes, wondering how much the taciturn mutie had seen and heard before announcing his presence. “And you just got here, I take it?”
“More or less.” Fixie shrugged. “Where do you want me to start?”
Doc decided against pressing the issue. Interrogating Fixie about what he’d witnessed might just make matters worse. “That depends. Do you have any experience with the technology in this room?”
Fixie tipped back his baseball cap, then took a long moment and looked around the mat-trans chamber. Finally, he nodded slowly and returned his gaze to Doc. “You might say that. Did some work with the previous Dr. Hammersmith back in the day, until I got fired.”
Doc tried not to twitch, though Fixie had just identified him as not being the real Hammersmith. It was obvious, of course, though Doc had tried not to worry much about it; as long as deluded Exo kept calling him Hammersmith, it seemed the other shifters were prepared to accept it.
“How did you get fired?” he asked evenly.
Fixie stared at him for a while as if sizing him up. “Because I tried to talk him out of activating the modified device while it was pulling from an intermittent power source. I warned him it could cause sporadic and unpredictable effects.”
Doc was surprised to hear so many words tumble out of Fixie’s mouth and further surprised that he seemed to have some technical expertise. “But he ignored you?”
Fixie shrugged. “Too much wacky weed. That or too much ego. Mebbe both.”
“Okay.” Doc hiked a thumb at the control panel he’d been fiddling with before Fixie’s arrival. “Over there. Let us start with that.”
Fixie pursed his lips and nodded. “Good choice.” Then he gave Doc a funny look out of the corner of his eye. “What should I call you anyway?”
Doc thought for a moment, then smiled. “Theo.” It was something no one called him anymore, a name abandoned in the mists of history. Maybe now, as he tried to take charge of his own destiny for a change, was as good a time as any to blow the dust off it. “You can call me Theo.”
“All right.” Fixie cracked his knuckles. “Sounds good to me. Let’s get started, and I’ll jump in when you tell me what you want me to do.”
“I have a better idea.” Doc bowed. “How about if I assist you?”
Fixie thought it over for a moment, then shrugged. “Sure, Theo. Why the heck not?”