August 31, 2009
Manchester, NY

He helped her out of the car and led her into the hangar carefully. It had been a while since she had been here last, so he wasn't sure if she would remember where everything was.

/You got laid the last time she was here, boss. Trust me, she'll remember. Girls are profound on the sex event./ Chak was never one to beat around the bush. Thomas was just glad he had chosen to direct that comment just for him, leaving Thomas the only one to hear his excessive...bluntness.

He showed her what she could feel, and even turned the device on so she could feel with her own senses what the Gate could do. It was important. She had to see, to know he was done, to know there were no more distractions, no more projects right now, only her. Only helping her solve her mysteries and answer her questions. How could he say he loved her if he wasn't willing to drop everything to help her? The tour completed, he sat her down on the couch, placing Chak on her lap, and told her he would just be a moment to shut things down and recover the gate.

There, sitting on the couch, she smiled and almost laughed, assuring him she was fine. Okay, maybe he was a little overprotective, but considering the circumstances...

/Chak, make sure she stays clear of the cables, okay?/

/Sure, boss./

The gate was still working perfectly. Too perfectly. As he turned back to head for the console, he caught a shadow out of the corner of his eye on the other side of the gate. A blink and a step back were all Thomas was able to take before Ford, in a suit that looked like something out of a Jacques Cousteau special, stepped over the threshold and into the hangar. As if he knew what to look for, Ford simply leaned over and spun the resonant frequency dial. Thomas could only get out a, "What the...FORD! NOT THAT!" The generator would implode under that kind of power and they would all die. Damn him!

However, his thoughts were caught short by one of the suit's iron mitts clamping around his neck. As the turbine whined up to overload levels, he heard a distinct crack in his ears, and a blind, stabbing pain in his neck that spread like fire to his entire body, and was almost immediately replaced by wonderful, blissful, blackness.

Ford took one look at Kammy's blind, panicked face, and shook his head, looking down at Thomas' limp form, /I showed you yours, you little upstart. Now I'll take what's mine./ Chak stumbled and spasmed in Kammy's lap. Figures Thomas would take a weasel for a familiar. Fitting too. Should just pop your head off right here, but then your new friends might be able to save you. No, something else...MUCH more fitting.

He waited for the gate image to change, a darker, deeper setting, then proceeded to step back through with his captive.

Never let it be said that a scientist's experiment works the same way twice. Reality abhors a vacuum, and the will fueling the gate was first silenced, then replaced with a stronger one, a 'hiccup' in magical power that did not go unnoticed by Thomas' incredibly complex creation. In one brief instant, Ford's pattern signature, still in the gate's memory, attempted to return to the Umbra from which it had come, as well as continue on to this new destination that had been set.

In a single bright flash and only the sudden inhale of breath that precludes the blood-curdling scream of a man that knows he is about to die, Ford's final act of Hubris brought his life to an end as his body simply shredded itself inside his wonderful protective suit. The gate itself, now with nothing left to fuel its operation, sent its 2 passengers on its way, and died in a fitful electric heart attack, leaving a horrified, saddened Kammy and a damaged Chak very, very alone.

Mmmm. Yes. Doby sees the bright light. The bright flash.

Then it goes away. Mmmm.

Doby thinks a traveler had an accident. Mmmm. Yes.

Doby will go see if there are pretty things left.

Yes. Doby will do that.

Mmmm.

Doby sees a tiny person. Doby sees...oooo...Doby sees pretty skin. It has little blinking stars all over it. Doby wants the pretty skin.

Momma sez you should always trade. Only slavers take.

But tiny person isn't moving. Oooo. Tiny person looks broken.

Doby will take tiny person to Ferryman.

Ferryman will make sure slavers don't get tiny person.

Momma would like that. That will be trade.

Bye bye tiny person. Ferryman will take you home now.

/...home?/

Far from home, my friend. Now rest, your passage is paid for.