"Hmm? Oh yeah, I had a bit of a poke around up in the control room, while you and Graham were off flambéing the prof. I figured there had to be some snacks stashed away up there, somewhere. You know what I found?" Hair ruffling in the portal-generated wind, Peregrine's expression darkened. "Two-minute noodles. Two-bloody-minute noodles. You call those carbs? 'Cause I don't. I mean—"

"Peregrine!" Fields hauled his complaining partner back from the very brink of the portal's ravenous advance. "The charger! What was it you said about the charger?"

"Huh? Yeah, there's a drawer up there full of cables and chargers and stuff. But seriously? Two-minute noodles? I mean they didn't even have oriental flavour. You'd think—"

"Will you bloody shut up about noodles?" snapped Fields, backpedalling frantically, while trying to avoid a fatal slip and also simultaneously steer Peregrine out of harm's way. "Why the hell didn't you say so earlier?"

"I dunno. It didn't seem important." Finally realising their portalisation was apparently to be postponed for a bit, Peregrine broke into a half-hearted jog. "Hey, I thought we'd decided not to run."

Fields was finding his live partner even harder not to punch than the dead scientist. "That's because I didn't bloody know there was a freaking charger in the building. How the hell is that not important?"

Peregrine shrugged as she ran. "I just figured it'd all be over by the time the phone with the code thingummy charged. After all, that kind of thing takes hours." A hint of uncertainty crept into her voice. "Doesn't it?"

Fields gaped at her. "No! Well, maybe. But it wouldn't need to fully charge. We could enter the code while it's charging!"

"Are you sure?" Peregrine's face radiated scepticism. "That doesn't sound right to me."

"Of course I'm sure! What planet have you been living on? Anybody would think you've never had to plug your phone in when you're halfway through a movie or something."

"But I haven't. I haven't had to charge my phone for years."

"What?" Fields goggled at her, and then groaned, as understanding dawned. "You got your bloody phone in the future, didn't you? Don't tell me—that sucker is nuclear."

"Nah." Peregrine grinned at him. "It runs on methane."

"Methane?"

"Yeah. Methane—from the atmosphere."

Fields absorbed this. "Let me get this straight. You're telling me your phone runs on farts?"

"What? Of course not." Peregrine looked affronted. "It runs on methane, like I said."

"And where the bloody hell do you think methane comes from?"

"Well, you know—it comes from..." Her eyes widened. "Son-of-a-bitch," she breathed, "my phone runs on farts." She shook her head. "Anyway—the upshot is, I may be a little fuzzy on the whole charging thing. Are you sure we'd be able to enter the code?"

"Yes! Yes, I'm bloody sure! I'm sure because unlike a certain dead, dumb-arse scientist I could name, or my infuriating, future-faring, fart-phoned partner, I charge my phone every day. It was charging this morning when I got the text telling me to meet you at the Novus Institute, fourteen hours, a truckload of regrets and a whole bloody lifetime ago. So, yes—I am sure! Now, tell me where that bloody drawer is, so we can try to bloody well save the stupid world and I can maybe get a shower and a nice lie down."

As Peregrine did so, Fields attempted to orient himself, while another great section of the hangar wall crumpled and fell and was whisked away into the portal's ever-widening maw. Heart sinking, he realised their flight was taking them on an angle that was increasing the distance from the control room. That had to stop.

Peregrine evidently reached the same conclusion. "Right—you're probably faster than me, plus you'll know which bit plugs in to what. You make for the control room, and I'll cover you."

Fields glanced at the damaged structure, just visible beyond the perimeter of the portal's ever-expanding radius. "Cover me?" he queried, as he veered away from Peregrine. "Cover me from what?"

As if on cue—face bloodied and nose squashed grotesquely flat—the pink-overalled wolf-pig lunged at him from the shadows, or at least it did, until Peregrine shot it in the kneecap, sending it howling and hopping back off into the gloom.

"Oh, right." The adrenaline surge brought on by the attack provided just enough spark for Fields' exhausted muscles to break into a full run. "See you on the other side."

Gathering momentum as his fatigued legs got into their stride, while his fried synapses came to terms with the sudden switch from weary resignation to desperate hope, he tried to calculate the most efficient path to his goal. Clearly, to make it to the control room before it was consumed, he'd have to skirt very close to the edge of the portal—but having seen the fate of the giant, sucked into oblivion despite his massive strength and bulk, he knew all too well what his fate would be, should he skirt too close.

It was going to be tight. Very tight.

The green abyss yawning to his left, unknown threats lurking in the gloom to his right, Fields ran. Battered body protesting, weary mind reeling, hope-filled heart pounding, he ran. He ran with every ounce of his dwindling strength, with every last of iota of will he could summon, with determination dredged from reserves he'd never realised he possessed. He ran like the wind, like wildfire, like he was running from all the demons of hell (although he tried hard not to speculate on the likelihood of that actually being the case). He ran like a man possessed, like a hunted deer, like a runaway train. In short, he ran like a man with the fate of the world on his shoulders.

And then he fell over.

Rolling into the fall, he took the impact on his shoulder and was back on his feet in an instant, ready to continue his mad dash—only to find he couldn't. So focused was he on his goal that it took a moment for him to recognise the tentacle wrapped firmly around his ankle as the reason why.

He stared at the seemingly disembodied limb snaking out from the portal. He had time for a single ineffectual attempt to tug his leg free from its iron grasp, before whoever or whatever was attached to the other end began to reel in its catch.

There was a moment more of stunned disbelief. And then, without warning, a red mist descended upon Agent Fields. A haze of pure, unadulterated rage. "I—don't—think—so!" he roared, fumbling for his gun. Over the course of what was proving to be a very long, very trying day, he had learned, through repeated, painful experience, that in the grand scheme of things, in the complex, pandimensional tapestry that made up the multiverse, he really didn't know very much. But one thing he did know with absolute, unwavering certainty, one thing of which he was completely sure, was that he'd be damned to hell if his quest to save the world was going to end in the intestines of some sort of interstellar squid-monster.

"You want a souvenir of Earth, you slimy-arsed piece of shit? Try this!" He took aim, and with vindictive, savage pleasure, squeezed the trigger. Sadly, his captor chose that exact moment to give his leg a particularly savage tug, resulting in Fields shooting himself in the foot.

"Son of a bitch!" Rage redoubled, he emptied the rest of his clip into the grey, rubbery flesh, which shuddered and twitched in a most gratifying way, particularly once Peregrine added a few of her own shots to the barrage. Oozing a viscous, black ichor, the wounded tentacle uncoiled from his leg, before retreating almost sheepishly back into the green luminosity from whence it had come.

"Are you okay?" panted Peregrine, gun at the ready as she pounded up to him.

"No," growled Fields, as he holstered his empty gun. "I'm not. I'm annoyed." And as his injured foot added its own special contribution to the heady mix of pain suffusing his bruised, battered, and now bleeding body, he ran once more.

He leapt over talons, reaching from the abyss to rend his flesh, and he dived under attackers, lunging at him from the shadows. He ducked and wove and scrambled and rolled, all to the accompaniment of Peregrine's steady gunfire, blended with the howls and wails which were testament to her unerring accuracy, not to mention an impressive supply of ammunition.

"Probably got a bloody future-gun that runs on earwax," he would have muttered if he'd had the breath to spare.

And then—suddenly, miraculously, astonishingly—he was there. The portal lapping at his heels, he flung himself at the ladder, tearing up it two rungs at a time as he raced the relentless tug of oblivion closing in behind.

Popping through the hatch like a champagne cork, he rolled to his feet and ran for the cabinet Peregrine had described, located towards the rear of the listing room. Reaching it just as the front wall began to disintegrate and disappear, he reefed the top drawer clear off its runners, spilling cables and cords and plugs all over the floor.

And as he foraged frantically among them, horribly aware the fate of the world hinged on the presence of the right format of USB cable, the suspended structure gave a shuddering groan and dropped on one side, dramatically increasing its already drunken angle.

Instinctively grabbing for a nearby console to steady himself, while the raging green void remorselessly ate its way ever closer, Fields watched in horror as the tangled mess from the drawer slid away from him and out of reach—horror, mixed with a surge of hope, as he spotted the charger he needed, buried among the others.

Abandoning the somewhat dubious safety of the console, he launched himself in pursuit, just as another lurch sent both him and the nest of cables veering crazily towards the portal, and with a surge of triumph he managed to snatch the charger free as he slid past.

The triumph however was short-lived, as the pull of the portal combined with gravity to accelerate him inexorably towards the oncoming abyss; frantically he scrabbled for purchase, but his desperate hands found none.

And as he slid past the desk that was the last fixture between him and oblivion, as his questing fingers fell just short of the leg bolted securely to the floor, he closed his eyes and resigned himself to his fate—until, with a last, forlorn spurt of inspiration, and with a sharp, savage snap of his wrist, he flicked the plug end of the charger at the leg, very much like the world's crappiest, worst-designed and most-likely-to-fail grappling hook.

Only it didn't. In what Fields suspected was his first lucky break all day, the thin black cable obediently wrapped around the leg, the plug end caught and held, and his one-way trip to universes unknown jerked to an abrupt and unceremonious stop.

As fast as he dared, convinced at any moment the tenuous lifeline on which both his and the world's fate hung would snap, he pulled himself over to the desk, and using it for support, regained his feet. And then, pausing only to retrieve the charger, he lunged up the steeply sloping floor, pulling Featherstone's phone from his pocket as he went.

It was only the work of a moment to find a power socket, and as Fields plugged the charger into it, while wedging himself securely between a couple of consoles, he was reassured to see that despite the control room's travails, many of the instruments still boasted active lights and displays, indicating power still flowed.

Shrieking mournfully, the battered structure now shuddered and shook more or less continuously, and only after several unsuccessful attempts did he manage to insert the charger into the phone. Holding his breath, he hit the power button.

To be greeted with the unsmiling face of Agent Dana Scully, of X-Files' fame. For just a moment he experienced the most strangely intense out-of-body experience—but only for a moment. As the OS loaded, and icons obscured the image, reality clicked back into focus, and he set about finding the right app for saving the world. He was relieved to see Featherstone was the literal-minded type and figured the one called "Portal Closure" was probably a good bet.

And so it proved, but as the app loaded and the message "Enter Code" appeared on the screen, the console to his rear groaned and fell through the floor, and it was only with a convulsive leap that he avoided following suit.

Bracing himself against the violent bucking of the floor, he entered the first digits, forcing himself to do so with care and deliberation—this was no time for his BOOBIES to become BOOBLESS.

He was four numbers in when the floor below his feet gave way; he dropped like a stone until his right hand—the one not holding the tablet—managed to catch hold of the edge of the hole through which he had fallen, jarring his shoulder almost out of his socket, but abruptly arresting his descent. Which was great and all, other than the minor complication that he no longer had a free hand with which to enter the final three digits.

Dangling like an orangutan—arm spasming, foot throbbing and virtually every muscle vociferously protesting their excessive displeasure—he entered the last numbers with his nose, and his final thought, as the green tsunami swept him away, was a simple lament for the sheer, unbridled indignity of it all.