Shit, shit, shit.

Waylon can feel his heart beat inside his eyeballs; his vision seems to bulge on every thump.

On the second reminder to present their credentials, Ivan slaps the back of Waylon's head. "Don't just stand there! Shut it up!"

It stings: enough to pull him out of his own head. Waylon claps a protective hand over the spot and jerks to his feet. "I'm thinking!" He says, glaring at the solitary, rectangular outline on the panel's display. There has to be a way to stop it. He rubs a hand around the thin crevice where its set into the wall. No bumps, no seams. No hints at where he might be able to wedge open its matte, metal housing. Calm, stay—

It blares another reminder. "Please state your name and place your credentials against the pad. An alarm will sound in ten seconds. Are you struggling to find your credentials? If so, please check these common places: back pants pocket; briefcase; inner coat pocket—"

Waylon presses his palms over his ears. Think, think. Come on! What do they do in the movies?

A scene from A New Hope jumps to the forefront of his memory. Just as if he was in the theater. Back at the film's three-hundred and eighth anniversary re-release with his dad. *Luke and Leia run out onto the precipice of a drawn bridge. Boots thunder behind them; blasters leave their holsters and metallic clips jangle from rising barrels. What can they do? Luke darts his eyes around himself.

The panel?

He yanks Leia to the side and pulls his blaster's trigger.

The memory of blistering, zipping lasers breaks with the panel's shrill voice: "5 seconds remaining."

There's no way it'll work, but adrenaline and panic thrum inside his heart. He hurls a fist right into the glass-fronted display. Everything crunches: the glass; whatever's behind the display; his hand. Fire spreads up his knuckles. He yanks his hand back and a couple, small shards of glass with it.

And the panel stays silent. No countdown, no reminders, but a still-closed, indifferent door.

Ivan claps a hand onto Waylon's back. "Whoa, your hand okay there? I didn't mean for you to beat the shit out of the thing."

Wincing, Waylon massages both miniature glass daggers out of his skin. "I'm fine."

Red bubbles at the cuts. He swipes his knuckles down his hip and smears blood over his pant's black denim in colorless, dark swaths.

Thea's squeaks her head around Ivan's breadth. "A-are we okay?"

Ivan winks at Waylon, then props his back against a wall. "We're perfect. Our commandick-in-chief has it under control."

What? The wink... why?

Thea shrinks back and wrings trembling hands around her cane's handle. "A-and what do we do? What if there's another trap?"

Fresh blood pools, warm and wet between Waylon's knuckles. He ignores it. Instead, kneeling down close to the door, he exhales to the point of dizziness. Wisps of fog roll out of his mouth and coat a rough circle of the surface in opaque condensation.

He steadies himself. One palm against the wall, he rubs his exposed forearm over fog-coated steel. "It's just the refrigeration unit in there. We won't be running into anything else."

The material fades and cold air blasts past his arm. Goose bumps crawl over him in a wave of tingling pain, but that doesn't matter. His mind is consumed by the sight in front of him. Beyond the hole, it's another world. Mirror-finished steel replaces concrete, plaster, and carpet. From ceiling to floor, it's like a box that stretches forever in every direction. At it's center sits an angular machine; an elegant metal form fit for any piece of science fiction. Pipes weave from the floor into its sides, then out its top and straight through a wall.

Water wells in Waylon's eyes. The mirror-like walls cascade their near-infinite recursion at the slightest shift of his head. It's dizzying; his stomach churns, but he blinks away tears and plunges his arm through the hole. He flails it to the side, slapping against painfully cold steel.

No controls.

He strains. He stretches. Inside his arm, tendons tremor and burn. The hole is shrinking. It digs into his shoulder blade and turns the steady stream of cold air to a trickle. He tugs on his arm, but it's stuck and the hole is still shrinking: digging deeper.

One last try is all he'll get. He sprawls his legs out behind him and pushes: rubber soles tear against concrete; his face slams against the door. "Gah, come on!" His fingertips graze against a steel box of some sort and he grabs for it. He claws at it. Somewhere on the box's face, his hand clips the side of a small, round protrusion. He slaps his palm onto it. There!

Stolen novel; please report.

The button clicks and the door hisses in kind. Relief sweeps over him. "There. Got it."

Then the door jerks and he jerks with it: it slides along a track and starts disappearing into a cavity inside the wall. He flails his free arm out behind him. "Pull!"

In an instant, the sack of salt thunks onto the ground near Ivan's feet and the brute's hands wrap around his ankles. Ivan tugs. Waylon's stomach lurches and his entire body lifts off the ground, hovering. Stuck between a pocket-door and a hard-ass.

That is, until the upside-down mountain of a man throws his entire weight backward.

All but one of Waylon's appendages scream: each leg pops under the tension, more satisfying than painful; his stuck arm is just painful. A stretching, pinching mess split between the his arm finally reaching the door frame and Ivan's heft.

Pop.

Waylon's head plonks off the concrete; light flashes behind his eyelids. It turns to stars dancing through darkness and washes away the outside world in a dizzying wave of nausea. He rolls onto his side and buries his head in both arms.

Both of them.

Wrapping a hand around a pipe, Ivan pulls himself up from the ground. "Why don't you just make the holes bigger? It can't be that hard to do."

Thea drops to the ground beside Waylon and her cane clatters to the ground. "Give him a second, you just smacked his head on the ground. Are you okay?"

Waylon groans; his voice comes out like whistling steam. "Just a second." He curls into himself. "Shit. Gah!"

She hovers a hand near his back, but — eventually — she pats him a couple times. "O—okay. It's okay."

A few minutes pass. The stars fade; the pain subsides. Waylon creeps up onto all fours and latches a hand onto a nearby pipe. "You'd run out of breath with this power too." He rises on unsteady legs. "Why did you pull me by my feet?"

Ivan shrugs. "Thought I'd get more leverage that way."

"I'm not a fucking lever."

"You're fine, right? Look, I feel bad about it. Sorry. But, if you're not actually hurt—" Ivan jabs a finger past him, pointing toward the alien piece of machinery. "Then stop the play and tell us what that is."

Waylon rubs at a knot forming at the edge of his hairline and — supported by the pipe — stumbles toward the open door. "Whatever. That's the refrigeration unit for the penguin enclosure. Someone wants it. Was built by a big-shot at the Federal Bureau of Heroes a while ago, so it's collectible."

Thea plants her cane and climbs up its wooden shaft. "We're not going to hurt the penguins by taking it. A-are we?"

"No. Unless they're too slow to replace it."

Ivan waves a hand at the thing, dismissive. "And how are they going to replace that? Looks like it's out of Men in Black."

Waylon freezes his stumbling and stares at the man over his shoulder. "You watched Men in Black?"

"Of course I have. It's a classic."

Focus. Waylon trudges on toward the machine. "Well, they'll figure it out: it's a custom job from twenty years ago or something. There's better stuff off the shelf now."

Ivan hefts the discarded sack back up to his shoulder. "If you say so. That work for you, Sist— Thea?"

"Y-yeah. I think so, as long as we don't hurt the penguins." She says.

Waylon crosses the steel-framed threshold: infinite reflections and cold envelops him. He wraps his arms around himself. Near the entrance to the otherworldly room, condensation creeps along the mirror-like surface of the steel — obscuring its image and dulling the pain throbbing behind his temple.

He rests a hand atop one of the many gem-like facets of the refrigeration unit. "So Thea and I will stay here. Ivan, you'll make your way to the truck and—"

Thump.

Ivan drops his burlap sack onto frosted steel. "And I'll ring when I'm at the truck." He whips a pocket knife out and slashes off one of the sack's corners.

"Right." Waylon says.

Ivan pulls the salt back up and bobs his head toward the mess of pipes coming out of the machine. "You sure you're going to be able to handle doing your thing on all those pipes? Can't imagine it if you run out of breath on some small circles."

Waylon glares at Ivan with as much contempt as the now-constant shivers let him. "You sure you brought enough salt? It's a long way to the truck from here."

He barges past Waylon. "Sheesh, just asking, dick-hole." He kneels down and starts pouring a thin line of salt, starting from the base of the machine.

It'd be easy to answer his question, but something in Waylon's mind twists at the thought. An instinctive urge to keep what he knows about his own power a secret.

He doesn't need to know.

The line of salt grow. Ivan pours from left to right, then — every few seconds — he shifts to the side as his arms run out of reach. It's as if he were a human sprinkler; a walking typewriter.

One, two, three— Waylon counts as Ivan's pompadour bobs further and further away. Four, five, six— At fifteen, Ivan disappears into the darkness of the hallway. Waylon sucks in a deep breath. Sixteen, seventeen— At twenty, the sound of Ivan's shifting feet fades away.

Waylon brings his face near one of the output pipe and exhales a soft flow of air. Mist forms. It coils from his mouth and splashes against the pipe, where it wraps around the circumference. Lights swim at the edge of his vision. He works his exposed forearm against the metal, against the easiest parts to reach. And, as metal disappears, it gets easier. Not easier to stay conscious, just easier to fit his arm into places he shouldn't be able to.

A section of the pipe is gone after a few minutes. It was actually — probably — only a few seconds to everyone else, but not to him. His vision swirls; his eyes threaten to roll back. He doubles over and slaps steadying hands on the humming machine. "Only nine more."

Thea plants herself beside him, breathing to the beat of her heart and voice quivering. "S-sorry, but are you really sure they'll stay gone long enough for Ivan to reach the truck?"

What was she doing? Why is she out of breath, too? It doesn't matter, no reason for her to know.

She grinds one set of nails into her cane's handle. "Sorry. I... I just have problems with worrying. We're so far away from the truck and that intern is walking around and what if someone else comes and we need to run? Or—"

Pain throbs behind Waylon's left temple and he heaves a breath. "I get it. I'm sure."

She stares in silence. Her breathing doesn't return to normal and her face starts to contort, shifting through emotion-laden patterns as he can see her thoughts spinning out of control.

He drops his head, letting it hang between his arms. "It lasts longer depending on the temperature, like when it's cold out and a kid exhales on a car window."

It isn't instant, but her demeanor changes. Short breaths turn steady; her hands stop fidgeting. "Yeah, that makes sense. That makes sense. T-thanks." She says.

That simple? Waylon gives her a curt nod and leans up next to another pipe, dreading the incoming bout of light-headedness.