Witmeyer gave her bombshell a moment to penetrate, chewing noisily on the tobacco and spitting a long rope of brown juice in the general direction of Smart’s sink.
“You shouldn’t spit,” said Smart absently. “Believe it or not, this is a sterile environment.”
The professor did not seem as puzzled as he should rightly have been. There was no slack-jawed disbelief or raging objection. Smart simply muttered to himself and ran his fingertip in complex zigzags across the tabletop.
“I did it, then,” he mumbled. “I must have done it. Incredible.”
Witmeyer snapped her fingers. “Are you still with us, Professor? Would you care to share what you must have done?”
Smart lifted his head, but his eyes were unfocused. “The only way Colonel Box could know about me would be if we met, or if he knew my work.” A thought seemed to slap him across the face. “Oh my God. Oh no. All those missiles, those futuristic missiles. It’s my fault. I opened the wormhole. It could only have been me.”
Clover Vallicose’s tiny reservoir of patience was running out. “Citizen, speak plainly. What missiles? Are you building missiles for the Jax?”
Smart drifted back into the room. “Jax? What? No, of course not. Don’t you see?” He waved his arms wildly. “This. All of this. It’s my doing. It must be. The only way the colonel could have built such weapons is if I opened the wormhole for him. I enabled this godforsaken empire.”
Chevie felt her heart speed up, thumping palpably in her chest.
Yes, said Traitor Chevie. Yes. This is it. Now we’re getting somewhere.
Smart was on his feet, running both hands through his sparse white hair, smoothing long strands backward across his shining skull. “How would it have gone? I built the machine in another timeline, and Box accessed it. He went back with his team and took over the country. With his knowledge, it would have been child’s play. Crazy? Am I crazy? No. It must be.” Smart opened the bread bin and pressed a series of buttons on a panel hidden inside. “So, what then? He’s emperor of all he surveys. The last thing Box wants is someone coming back and taking it all away from him, so he leaves an order that I am to be killed. But he won’t have me executed as a child. He has to wait until the world is his, plus the length of the wormhole, in case he needs an escape route.”
Smart rushed around the kitchen, flipping switches on circuit boards that had seemed discarded. His eyes were wild; his hair sprang from his skull in an electric halo no matter how he tried to flatten it.
“Don’t you see?” he shouted. “I did this. All of it. And now I must undo it.”
Vallicose drew her weapon. “You speak in riddles, spy. Blasphemous riddles at that. Stand still, blast you, and allow our young cadet to carry out her orders.”
The kitchen was now humming like a giant refrigerator, and Witmeyer felt the situation slipping away. “Very well, Citizen. You’ve had your little episode. It’s natural, people react in different ways. Now, you tell us in plain English what you are babbling about, and the girl here will kill you quickly. We can’t be any fairer than that.”
Smart ignored her. “I can still stop Box. Without those missiles, he’s nothing.”
Vallicose was offended. “Box? Do you speak of the Blessed Colonel as an equal?” She stood suddenly, shunting her chair backward. “On your knees, Citizen. And pray to God for purgatory instead of hell.”
Witmeyer rolled her eyes. Here came the fire and brimstone.
“Cadet Savano, this is ridiculous. Do your duty and put an end to the madness.”
There is no end to madness, thought Chevie. No end.
“You heard me, Savano. Prove yourself a patriot.”
Smart is the key, said Traitor Chevie. He is the way out.
“Shut up!” said Chevie, and she pulled her weapon. “Shut up.”
Smart behaved as though he were alone, rattling off long equations, throwing switches, and testing the wind with his finger.
“It should work. I have been building it for years. The calculations are sound.”
Chevie pointed the gun at him. What choice did she have?
“Stand still,” she ordered. “Stop talking.”
“Good girl,” said Witmeyer. “It will all be over soon.”
“Shoot!” said Vallicose. “For Box and Empire, shoot!”
No, said Traitor Chevie. You know this man. Think. Remember.
A vision popped into Chevie’s head. Smart, but with a monkey arm.
Not now, she begged the Traitor. Just let me get through this.
She followed Smart with the barrel. A moving target. “Please, Professor.”
Please, Professor what? Stand still and be shot like a good fellow?
“The bridge is constant,” said Charles Smart, dialing the knobs on the oven. “I should be in time to stop Box.”
“Kill the heathen!” shouted Vallicose. “Kill him!”
Professor Charles Smart, that’s his name, not heathen. And his son Felix. Agent Orange. Remember, Chevron.
Chevie pointed the gun at her own head. “Get out of me! Leave me!”
“Well now,” said Witmeyer, delighted. “This is interesting.”
The entire room was vibrating now. Whatever Smart was doing, it was a lot more than making an omelette.
You know this, said Traitor Chevie. You know exactly what is happening here.
“Kill the heathen!” shrieked Clover Vallicose.
No. She could not. Chevie could not believe that the Blessed Colonel wanted her to murder old men.
Her head pounded. Hammer blows behind the eyes. The Traitor was exploding.
“No!” she shouted. “I won’t kill him! No.”
She took the cold steel from her own temple and turned it on Witmeyer. “Raise your hands.”
Vallicose pointed a righteous finger at Chevie. “Do you see now? I was right. Was I not right?”
“You were right, Sister, but we had our orders. And she is a mere child.”
Witmeyer raised her hands, but in a mocking fas
hion, wiggling her fingers as though terrified when her features showed she was anything but.
“Don’t shoot me, Cadet. I am your friend, truly.”
The walls began to flex slightly, and Vallicose had seen more than enough to convince her that something traitorous and possibly heretical was going on here.
“I will kill the professor now,” she declared. “We can investigate later.”
“As usual,” said Witmeyer.
Chevie was confused. Did they not see the gun? Did the Thundercats think themselves immortal?
“Stay where you are!” she ordered, half-wishing the Traitor would take over now and she would become a super soldier. “Leave the professor alone.”
Vallicose ignored Chevie completely, moving briskly toward Smart, who had opened the dishwasher and was rearranging the plates inside. With each switched plate, the lighting inside the kitchen changed color.
Witmeyer stood, keeping her hands raised. “You don’t think, Cadet, that we would put a loaded weapon in the hands of a traitor.”
They were testing me, thought Chevie. And I failed.
Just to be sure, she aimed the gun at Witmeyer’s leg and pulled the trigger. There was no bang, just the hollow clack of a hammer on an empty chamber.
Witmeyer sighed. “Click, not boom. That means, Cadet, that you are out of time.”
The walls suddenly began to shake.
“Yes,” said Professor Charles Smart. “It’s working.”
Whatever was working, Vallicose didn’t like it. “In the name of the Blessed Colonel, shut this racket off.”
Smart crossed his legs and sank into the lotus position. “It can’t be shut off. Not now. We are all going on a journey, Sisters. It will be easier if you relax.”
“No journey for you, traitor,” said Clover Vallicose. She drew her weapon from a hip holster and fired. Smart was hit high in the chest and skittered backward as though dragged from behind. Blood frothed from the jagged wound, saturating his upper body in seconds. There was no doubt in Chevie’s mind that this couldn’t be anything but a fatal injury.