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"Time, I think," I said.
"Time? Time can't move an Orion like that, Dr Wylde."
"It wasn't us," I told him. "It had to be Time."
"Simply a glitch, nothing more."
I shrugged.
"What happened next?" His voice was so soft, so caring. I needed that right now. I needed someone to tell me everything would be alright. I'd killed my nemesis, but I still felt like I was grieving.
I'd expected there to be a sense of relief, a period of rejoicing even. I expected once Sergei had been dealt with, that I would feel happy. But all I felt was a sense of loss, as if my alternate universe family had just died as well. As if they'd been cut off from me because the one link between us I could have used to find them was dead. Because I had killed him with one well-placed shot from my gun.
A small part of me knew I was going into some kind of shock, but I couldn't do anything about it. I wished Jack was here. Even Fawkes would have given me a pat on the back. Rafe would have tried to make me smile. As would have Dean and Sally. I wanted my friends. I wanted this day to be over. I wanted out of this Orion and not to be staring at the dull, dead eyes of Sergei Ivanov.
I'd killed a man this morning. When would this bloody day end?
"Dr Wylde?" Anderson pressed gently. "What happened after you shifted planes?"
"I went to grab Black and pull him back inside the Vehicle," I said. For the first time in a long time, I felt the onset of time travel-induced drowsiness. It had been weeks since I'd needed to sleep after a flight through Time but I remembered falling asleep at the drop of a hat for the first few days of flying in an Orion.
I yawned as Anderson said, "Did you succeed in securing Mr Black and the Vehicle? Is that when Sergei Ivanov stormed the Orion?"
It would have been good to have agreed with his version of events here, but his goon and overseer would have corrected the retelling when they awoke, and I just wanted this over and done with so I could get some sleep.
I shook my head, still yawning widely. "Nope. Grumpy pulled a gun and fired at me and while I rolled out of the way of the bullet, I knocked Black out of the MPCV. He went splat on the concrete while Bryan disarmed Grumpy. After that, there wasn't much else to do but fix the rip."
"So, after incapacitating your escorts — either unintentionally or with extreme prejudice — you secured the crew and Vehicle? Is that correct?"
"Well, we did pick Black up off the ground and place him back in the module."
"Then tied him and your guard up to stop them hurting themselves, presumably?"
"Of course not. We tied them up so they wouldn't steal the Vehicle."
"Why would they steal the Vehicle if you remained inside it?"
"Well," I said, scowling at the man. God, I felt tired. "We didn't stay in the Vehicle, did we?"
Silence met my words, and I abstractly noticed Anderson's lips twitched in the beginnings of what I thought might have been a self-satisfied smile.
"You and Dr Fawkes both left the Vehicle?" he inquired.
"How else were we going to catch Sergei?" I said.
"Of course. So, you left the Vehicle and your escorts behind and did what next?"
"Broke into the admin building."
"The Russian Space Program's administration building in Star City, 1966?"
"Yep." I narrowed my eyes at him. What was he playing at? He knew when and where we'd gone?
Another yawn took me, and I slumped down on my butt, leaning against some cupboards.
"Can I go to bed yet?" I asked.
"In a minute, Dr Wylde. Just one more thing. Was it your idea or Dr Fawkes' to leave the Vehicle and go after Ivanov?"
