"Oh, come on."

Exasperation—not fear, not anger, not even surprise. Just exasperation. That was Fields' overriding reaction to having a gun pulled on him by the nerd who was supposed to be busy saving the world—pure, unadulterated, industrial-grade exasperation. "You cannot be serious."

Featherstone blinked. This was clearly not the response he'd been expecting. "What...what do you mean?"

"What do I mean?" Fields flopped into a conveniently nearby chair—if Featherstone wanted to shoot him for sitting down, well then, he was tired enough to risk it. "What the hell do you mean, by pulling a gun on me? By clinging to the deluded fantasy you might actually be able to finish whatever the hell it is you hope to achieve with all these crazy schemes of yours? Can't you see it's over, Featherstone? Don't you think you've done enough harm? Caused enough death? Can't you hear the fat lady singing, Frankie-boy? She must be just about ready for the encore by now. Face it—it's over."

"You're wrong!" insisted Featherstone, his tone petulant. "It's not over. Don't say that. There's just been a few setbacks, is all. Some glitches. A few bugs in the code. And I'm good at fixing bugs."

"Ha!" I've really got to stop saying that. "I'll tell you what you're good at, Frankie. You're good at being a dumb-arse. I don't think I've ever met anyone better. Radovic might have been a first-class, A1, despicable arsehole, but he was right about you. You are the stupidest genius in existence."

"Stop it!" demanded Featherstone, the gun he held wavering with the force of his emotion. "Don't say that! You will show me some respect, damn you!"

Taking a leaf out of Britney's playbook, Fields elected to demonstrate his respect via an emphatic, prolonged raspberry. "Blow it out your arse, dipshit."

Clutching his wounded side with one hand, Featherstone stood. "Stop it!" he demanded again, taking a step towards Fields. "You will stop that right now. You will do as I say, you...you...stinkface!"

Expression blank, Fields held his gaze for a moment. And then cracked up. He just couldn't help it. "Stinkface? Stinkface?" he gasped, wiping his eyes. "That's the best you can do? You know Frankie, I don't know that you're really villain material. I think maybe you should stick to quantum cats."

"Be silent!" shouted Featherstone, wincing at the effort. "Of course I'm not a villain." He paused to catch his breath. "I'm doing this for the good of the world. Every great enterprise requires sacrifice—Dr Radovic explained it to me."

"Oh, yeah? Was that before or after he started offing your princess girlfriends?"

"Be quiet!"

"I'm guessing it was probably before he shot you."

"Shut up!" Breathing deeply, one hand pressed to the dressing keeping him alive, the scientist took another step towards Fields. "That was...my fault. I let Dr Radovic down. I brought this on myself. I've been foolish and weak and lacking in resolution. But no longer.

"I know now what I must do. Sitting here, looking out at...at..."—vaguely, he waved his gun at the green-lit vista visible through the shattered windows—"all this, the situation has become clear to me. It's all right there. I have achieved what virtually every scientist before me thought impossible. I have ventured to the very edges of reality. I have wrought wonders both miraculous in nature and staggering in scope—yet my discoveries are marred by the glaring ineptitude of my failures. My softness. And yes—my stupidity.

"So, it is time for a clean slate. Time to wipe away all trace of this debacle. Time to start over, with renewed purpose, with a clear focus and with no more mistakes. It is time to prove I am worthy of both Dr Radovic's trust and the responsibility for setting the world on a better path."

Fields yawned. Not out of disrespect, just simple tiredness. "Yeah, yeah. You know, I might have been wrong about the villain thing, Frankie—you've certainly got the monologue thing going on. Is there a point coming?"

Featherstone raised his gun again. "You want a point, Agent Fields? Very well. The point is that I'm in charge now. So, you will shut that insolent mouth of yours, and you will do as you're told!"

Fields fought down the urge to keep needling the scientist—for the first time, the look in his eyes suggested the possibility he might be capable of pulling the trigger. "Oh, yeah? And what's that?"

"You will take me to Dr Radovic. I will explain my new purpose to him. He needs to see that I have changed." Featherstone swallowed. "And I need to convince him to give me a second chance."

Given the rapid pace of events, Fields had more or less forgotten he and Graham were the only ones who knew Radovic was a charred corpse cooling in the torched wreck of his SUV. And somehow, he had the sneaking suspicion now may not be quite the best time to bring up that particular little nugget of information. Telling a wounded, semi-crazed gunman you'd just barbecued the person he considered to be his only friend did not feel like a move likely to calm the situation. He decided perhaps some digression may be a better option. A little diversion. Possibly with a dash of obfuscation thrown in.

"You know I can't do that. You need to stay right here and shut that portal down. Take care of that, and I'll see what I can do."

Featherstone glanced out at the titanic green maelstrom soaring into the darkened sky, before turning back to Fields, a hint of smugness clearly visible on his drawn, pain-lined face.

"Oh, that? Already taken care of. I told Agent Peregrine I would do my best to close the portal, and that's precisely what I've done. Despite what you might think, I'm a man of my word."

Great. Still a dumb-arse and still delusional. Fields pointed at the portal. "Well, what the hell is that, then? Swamp gas reflecting the light from Venus?"

The smugness turned to puzzlement. "What? No, of course not. The light from Venus would be far too faint, and even if it wasn't, I hardly think the reflectivity of swamp gas would be—"

"Frank! What I mean is, if you've shut down the portal, then why is it still bloody there?"

"Oh, I see. That was sarcasm, wasn't it? I never was very good at sarcasm. That's one of the reasons I'm partial to fairy tales, you know. Very little sarcasm, in fairy tales. Or innuendo. Or irony. Or any of those complicated aspects of social interaction I never really got the hang of. Everything is so straightforward, in fairy tales. Just good and evil, heroes and villains, right and wrong, and always a clear path to follow." Featherstone sighed. "If only real life was like that."

Thinking back over the day he'd been through, Fields found it a little hard to disagree. Not that he was about to admit it. "Whatever. But the portal?"

"Ah, yes—the portal. You may rest assured the process that will result in its closure has been put in place, Agent Fields.

"Er, right." Fields was a little nonplussed, and a not a little relieved. "I see. Well, that's...good, I guess. So, we just wait?"

"Wait?" Featherstone looked shocked. "Oh, no. No, no, no. Definitely not. We must leave. We can't possibly stay here."

"Why the hell not?"

The thin lips formed into a lopsided smile. "I don't think you were really listening to me, Agent Fields. I told you it was time for a clean slate. That I was going to wipe away all of my mistakes."

Fields' relief evaporated, as his blood ran cold. "What do you mean by that?"

"It's very simple, agent. Well, for me, it's very simple. For you, I'm afraid it's terribly complicated. But I'll give you the super-simplified version, shall I? The version suitable for a—what was that charming word you used, before? Dumb-arse, I think it might have been? Yes, that was it. Especially for you, here's the dumb-arse version, Agent Fields.

"As you no doubt see it, the portal is a passage to other planes of existence—to other worlds. In actuality, it is much, much more than that—it's a tightly-structured, complex, higher-dimensional manipulation of the fabric of spacetime—but for the sake of simplicity, let us continue to think of it as a simple doorway.

"Now, most doorways admit traffic in two directions—in and out. Yet our portal appears to be an exception, allowing incoming traffic only. Why do you think that might be, agent?"

Fields shrugged. "Because science?"

Featherstone ignored him. "I'll tell you why. It is because that's how I designed it. I couldn't very well have my creation vacuuming up anybody or anything that came near it, could I? So, I incorporated an Einstein-Rosen gate. A gate that blocks outgoing traffic."

Fields felt some kind of response was expected. "Yay?"

"Yay, indeed, agent. The Einstein-Rosen gate was the only reason I dared activate the portal unenclosed, out on the hangar floor. While I realise that was a mistake, the gate has at least ensured that nothing within the portal's radius has been lost from this world. Until now."

"Um—boo?"

"Save your boos for yourself, Agent Fields. For it was you who deactivated the Einstein-Rosen gate, when you cut that cable. It is you who has consigned everything that falls within the portal's expanding radius to a one-way trip out of this universe. And it is you who has helped me to achieve my clean slate. Thank you, Agent Fields—thank you."

"I...but..." Momentarily speechless, suddenly bereft of his former reckless bravado, Fields stared out at the colossal green column, its tremendous, pulsating girth inching ever outwards. "But you said you'd deactivated it."

"No—I didn't. What I said was that the process to shut down the portal had been put in place."

"Huh? Well, what the bloody hell is that supposed to mean, then?"

"It means the process requires activation, Agent Fields." Reaching into a pocket of his lab coat, Featherstone retrieved a smartphone. "Activation provided when I enter a code into this device. A code I will enter, once all evidence of my past mistakes has been erased."

Well, you'd better get yourself down to the morgue, Fields managed to refrain from saying. And looking at that haircut, you should probably pay your barber a visit as well. Despite the constant and repeated setbacks, the day had presented him with, he couldn't help but feel a faint flicker of hope. As bonkers as Featherstone may be, he had the closure of the portal—and therefore, the saving of the world—at his fingertips. Fields just had to keep those fingertips (and the dumb-arse attached to them) on the right track.

"Okay, sounds fair. Now, let's—"

"Oh, I'm not done, Agent Fields," interrupted Featherstone. "I'm not quite finished. There's one more thing I require, before I enter the code."

Fields felt just a little of his waning bravado revive. "For you, Frankie—anything. What's it gonna be, science-boy?"

Featherstone returned the phone to his pocket. "Before I enter the code..."

"Yes?"

"Before I shut down the portal..."

"I'm all ears."

"Before I save the world from annihilation..."

Fields managed to stop his eyes from rolling. "Spit it out, Frank."

The pale, strained face broke into a wistful smile. "I need to see Dr Radovic."

Both bravado and hope vanished, so fast there was an almost audible pop in Fields' head. He sighed.

Bugger.