*label jailbreak_start

"I spy with my little eye," the Professor says. "Something...starting with the letter...W."

Renne rubs her forehead. "Is it 'walls'?"

There is a long pause.

"No," says the Professor.

Dan raises his head. "Hang on," he says. "Shhh. What's that?"

A very familiar sound fills the cell. The three time travelers stand up and moved to one side as a metal booth whirrs into existence.

Fortunately, the door opens inward, revealing a portly woman in a halter top and slacks. "Well get a move on!" Frankie snaps, motioning.

*page_break "Hey, they're escaping!"

The Professor runs forward, laughing, and he grabs you in a hug. "${name}! You little trickster!"

You return the laugh. "Uh, yeah. I'm glad to see you too! Um." You pull back. "Didn't they leave you your clothes?"

"Nope." All three mentors are completely unclothed. "Not even an orange prison jumpsuit. I think it was some humiliation, brainwashing thing," the Professor continues. "Not that it worked on us, of course."

Frankie wanders to the back. "Clothes this way!"

Renne shrugs. "It's not the first time I've had to abandon my clothes on a mission." Dan, laughs, nervously, then he follows Frankie.

"All right," you say. "So we've got this time machine."

"Oh my," the Professor murmurs, circling the control console. "Put together from bits and bobs? Amazing..."

"Right, but what [i]now[/i]?" you ask. "Rescue the other agents?"

"No," Renne says. "We need a plan of attack. We're three of the best, and you've got a more or less proper time machine. That's all we need."

You frown. "But we don't have a relativistic ephemeris."

The Professor looks to you, then Renne, then to Holt. "That's a problem, but not an insurmountable one. Oh, you [i]are[/i] going to have to explain how you managed this!"

"I have a plan," Renne says. "In fact, I have a few! We really need that ephemeris, though." She glances at the Professor. "How do we take care of it?"

The Professor nods. "I bet our trainee will be able to figure it out."

*page_break "I will?"

"The point of a relativistic ephemeris," the Professor says, pacing around the console, "is that the Earth is always moving. Moving around the Sun, the solar system moving as part of the galaxy, even the galaxies moving..." Everyone is finally dressed, which is probably fortunate, as most cultures find nudity distracting.

"And time coordinates are measured from an absolute frame of reference?" you ask.

"Well, some temporal physicists believe that there [i]is[/i] no absolute frame of reference," the Professor says. "If you study--" Renne clears her throat loudly. The Professor smiles. "All right, enough theory. In practice, the way you make a relativistic ephemeris is to take time coordinate measurements in the same spot, periodically, over a long time. From that data, you can extrapolate any coordinates you want."

"A long time?" Holt asks.

The Professor nods. "The longer the time, the higher quality the ephemeris."

"What quality would you get," you say, "if you took measurements over a period of a hundred years?"

The Professor grins. "[i]Pretty[/i] good."

*page_break

Frankie presses the button to open the door, then she sits back, frowning. "And who are you?"

"${name}," you say, walking forward. "You'll meet me soon. Maybe a week or so? I couldn't remember the [i]exact[/i] date. With the Professor."

"Okay, fine." She taps a few keys on her keyboard. "Your comp is showing a valid Paradox Corps ID. So why are you here?"

"I need a favor." You smile. "Your temporal postal service. Here." You hold out a tablet.

Frankie takes it and looks at it. "Yeah?"

"It's simple," you say. "If you're ever in a situation where you're going to leave the robot alone, turn this on and read it. The files should be pretty straightforward." You shake your head. "Honestly, we should have thought of this beforehand instead of this...well, you'll figure it out. What do you think, can you handle it?"

Frankie snorts. "Of course I can [i]handle[/i] it. What 'robot'?"

"Oh, you know. If there's ever a robot. You know, hanging around." You hold out your hand. She looks at it for a moment, then she finally extends hers to shake yours. "Thanks, Frankie. You've been a big help to us!"

"I always am." She sits back, a smile tugging at her lips. "${name}, was it?"

*page_break "That's right. See you later!"

You walk out of the Octagon, down the stairs and into the metal booth. As the door closes around you, you look around at the assembled people, then you nod. "All right. Frankie, did you read the tablet?"

"I did." Frankie is managing to look incredibly smug. "I convinced the robot that it should perform these measurements every day and record them in the tablet." She walks over toward her customary seat. "And I told it, once it had finished, to encode the information in the keyword 'Bishop'."

"[i]Bishop.[/i]"

Everyone pauses and looks at the console. The screen is scrolling with text. "[i]Relativistic ephemeris online.[/i]"

Dan hastens to the controls. "There it is!" he says. "We can go anywhen now. Well, in the span of a few millennia, at least."

"That robot was the best investment we ever made," the Professor says.

"Yeah," you say. "Especially since it was free! I wonder where it went?"

"[i]Gotta fix that![/i]"

You stare. "It...built [i]itself[/i] into the time machine."

"Well, it [i]did[/i] interface with anything," the Professor murmurs. "Maybe it's fulfilling its true potential."

"Looks like everything is in order." Renne smiles.

*page_break "Attack?"

*goto_scene finalattack_0 finalattack_start

*finish