However, she’d pinched Cavalon a half dozen times already, and she was pretty sure he’d started to get annoyed. So she sat back and tried to think of another approach to fielding the duplicates. Jackin had suggested leading them straight out the door and off the edge of the platform. But real or no, that was a little too disturbing for her to seriously consider.
Thankfully, none of the strange past time ripples had occurred, at least not yet. She wasn’t sure if they’d show up as the Divide grew closer, or if they were an anomaly specific to whatever had happened to the Tempus. The future ones were causing enough of a problem all on their own.
As Cavalon and Mesa’s work began to wind down, the duplicates grew less and less frequent. They made fewer snap decisions, changed their minds less often. It wouldn’t stop the far-off futures from showing up, but it lessened the likelihood of the near-future ones considerably.
“We’re ready for the hydrogen,” Cavalon’s voice called through the comms.
Adequin exhaled a sigh of relief. She summoned her Imprints and picked up one of the four dozen, meter-and-a-half-tall compressed-hydrogen tanks. Griffith grabbed another, and together, Jackin and Puck lifted a third, and they filed down the curved corridor.
Adequin rounded the bend to find Cavalon and Mesa hovered in front of the wall-sized panel of gauges and screens.
“I don’t know, max grav sounds pretty good,” Cavalon said.
“But how can we be sure that is the proper setting?” Mesa argued.
“Well, we can’t, but I don’t think there’s an instruction manual lying around, do you?”
Mesa crossed her arms. “Certainly not.”
“Then I say we go big or go home.”
“That is a ridiculous statement.”
“Hey, you two,” Griffith said, hefting the tank up onto his hip. “In the market for some hydrogen?”
“Yes, please,” Mesa replied. “Thank you, Centurion.”
Cavalon took Adequin’s tank from her and marched it over to the far side of the bank of panels. Griffith set his nearby, and Puck and Jackin followed suit, then the three men disappeared down the hall to grab another round.
Adequin turned back to Mesa. “Hey, Mes?” She tilted her head down the hall, and Mesa took the hint, following her a few meters around the bend.
“Yes, Excubitor?”
Adequin switched to a direct comm link and lowered her voice. “Listen, I don’t wanna get Cav all worked up, but we might need to pick up the pace a little bit.”
“I understand.” Mesa inclined her head. “I will…”
“Light a fire under his ass?” Adequin offered.
Mesa’s disdain at the crude turn of phrase was apparent, but she nodded her agreement.
“But, gentle,” Adequin warned. “Don’t get him all freaked out. Tell him a story or something. Keeps him focused.”
Mesa gave an amused smirk. “I understand.”
Less than thirty minutes later, Mesa was three tales deep into her harrowing chronicle of experiences as a prisoner of war during the Resurgence—delivered of course with the utmost dispassion, as if reading a bland passage from an ancient historical account—when Cavalon finally finished. He emptied the last of the hydrogen into the vacuum-sealed chamber, then Mesa said something about checking the schematics one last time and disappeared down the hall, leaving Adequin alone with Cavalon as he detached the last tank and rolled it aside.
“That’s all of it.” He stepped back, hands on his hips. Sweat glistened on his forehead, visible even through the visor.
She switched to direct comms. “You okay? Your heart rate’s still high. Thought you were pretty distracted by Mesa’s stories.”