As Giles pulled the control room door closed behind them he thought, Damn, I should have taken Killington’s key! There was no way to lock the door; he could only shut it with a snick.

Never mind. Quick march to the exit. Where was it? Well of course, there was a green “Exit” sign at the end of the hall, how much easier could it possibly be?

“Take your hand off me, you careless ape,” Mary said with quiet intensity. Giles jumped, then understood that somebody was coming.

He was still in Ed’s body and he tried to mimic obnoxious possessiveness as he took his arm away slowly. A man with greasy black hair and a slick moustache passed them, studiously not looking at either of them.

When he was gone Mary muttered, “Very glad I’ve no plans to come back, though what I’ll do now…” She shook her head as their feet clacked on the tiled floors.

Giles reflected: this was a whole world inside this story. His mother would be out of a job and perhaps on the run from the law. This was a story and yet he couldn’t just leave her to it.

Did she see her future clearly? After the lunch with her ex where she warned that intrepid reporter about the secret evil project, she’d be out of a job. But she would move to San Francisco, wouldn’t she? This was only a story, wasn’t it? Did his mother ever have a husband named Robby Baker? Giles had no boyhood memories to match…

They rounded a corner and the door to the blinding desert sun was just 30 feet away.

In the alcove, the security guard looked up from his comic book. “That musta been one hell of a big dose of pain medicine, Ed.” His voice was jocular but also questioning: the man sensed something wrong and was doing his job.

Giles used the same line that had worked before. Pinching his mother’s arm and praying her forgiveness, he said, “Took my own bonus, Charlie. Best pain medicine in the world.” And leered.

The guard’s face relaxed and he grinned back, even winked at Mary and looked her over appreciatively, taking in her mussed hair and rumpled clothing and building a fantasy he just might use that evening with his wife. She looked hangdog as Giles pushed open the heavy glass door.

Outside they squinted and the heat held them like a dry blanket. The flag flapped harshly on its peeling white pole. Once again, the building looked completely deserted. Giles was even more certain now that it was deserted, a ghost building in a dying town. The sky above was Chaos, which it certainly was not in 1975. The roar of the main road was savage as the afternoon deepened to glum evening.

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But no, the building was not deserted. He could see the guard through the doorway and now Giles nearly smacked himself on the forehead: he’d noticed that the first time he was out here. He looked at the sign on the building again: “New Mexico Center for Abiotic Research.” And now he remembered that the first time he was out here, he’d felt Ed’s keys in his pocket and had even seen that they were modern, push-button car keys.

His mother looked at him expectantly: she counted on him, he’d said he had a way to escape and she was ready to take it. At the sight of his confusion, he saw her stiffen, grasp the reins in her ever-capable hands and prepare to take charge.

Damn it, this was his story! Outside this building it was present day, with a modern car in the empty lot, and Chaos sky. Inside it was another day and time. And yet he could look in through the door and see the guard just looking up and glancing out the door.

Mary saw the crazed sky and stood still as stone, looking at it. Her eyes widened but not just with shock.

Her eyes held recognition. Giles looked back nervously at the door and saw the guard looking down at his newspaper again. They had a few minutes then. He pulled out the keys from Ed’s pocket, pressed the unlock button and the red Camry clunked obligingly. “Come on, get in. When we’re away from here we can talk,” he said. He was not made for spy stuff, except to tell about it in stories. He wanted nothing except to get as far from this evil place as possible.

But his mother put her hand on his arm, resolve in her eyes. “I can’t go with you, a stor. This is your time, I see that now, and you must drive off into it. I must go back into that building with a good story, good enough to let me keep working here a while. Remember, love, I must go have lunch with you and tell you to go investigate that place in Sedona. I can’t do that if I’m some forty years in the future.”

The guard looked up again. Giles tensed, but the guard didn’t seem to see him. “Screw the continuity of this story!” Giles cried. “I can’t let you go back in there, he’ll, you don’t know what he can do! It’s worse than death. The story will work itself out some other way, I don’t know how.”

“No, I must go back. Twill be allright, lamb. His Lordship won’t know ‘twas me that hooked his legs from under him. I’ll tell him I was your helpless hostage the whole time.”

“Why would he believe that?”

Her face tightened. “I won’t ask you to do what must be done to give me a good cover, I know you couldn’t, no more than I could do it to you.” She gulped in two deep breaths as Giles blurted, “What are you…”

She slammed her forehead against the steel of the car door, hissing through her teeth. When she lifted her bloodied face, she smiled through the pain into his shocked eyes. She gasped, “Start driving as quickly as you can now.” She closed her eyes for a moment, gritting her teeth and Giles ached to think how badly she must hurt.

But she looked at him once more and said, “It’s been a gift to see the man you’ll become, love. You’re a treasure, as you’ve always been.” She kissed his forehead, lightly so as not to get blood on him, then walked, reeling and staggering, to the door.

Giles stood rooted to the spot, watched the guard look up as she fell through the door, then leap to his feet and kneel at her side. She put her hands to her bloody face and sobbed into his arms.

Then she pointed wildly to the door.

The guard yanked his gun clumsily from its holster and stood, a man clearly readying himself to face the danger he’d hoped he’d never have to face.

Giles turned and sprinted for the Camry, unable to understand why she had suddenly betrayed him.