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Bridge scratched his head, went, "Ow," realised he was scratching with his hydrospanner, and guiltily put that back down on the floor next to his crossed legs while he continued examining the circuit diagram in front of him. Hydrospanners really shouldn't be used for heads. Hydrospanners were far too delicate.
It went 'clang'. Oh. Too many other tools. Maybe there was another spot-
No, not really.
He sucked his lower lip between his teeth and stood, looking around his lab with a certain feeling of helplessness. He'd essentially walled himself in. He wasn't even entirely sure where the door *was* any more, which made him suspect he'd tapped into l-space accidentally again and parts of his lab came out in someone's library.
There was a theory that said that all libraries everywhere were interconnected. Bridge quite liked this idea except when it involved people shaking their fists at him about overdue fees in currency he didn't even recognise. Sometimes he didn't recognise the fists, either. Though on the plus side, he'd once spent a hugely instructive hour lost in someone's baked goods reference section.
His lab looked scary. There was stuff *everywhere*.
"I know some people don't see the forest for the trees. Maybe, just maybe, I've been fixating on a tiny shrub as opposed to something that covers the Amazon Basin, though that's probably more of a jungle than a forest. Not just any tiny shrub, either. I mean one that's about an inch high and about to be stepped on by-"
He stopped as his stomach rumbled. "Excuse me, I was talking," he told it earnestly. "Now, where was I?"
Oh, never mind. Really should finish off Z's music player before he looked for food.
But if he was going to finish off Z's music player then it was more important to get Syd's palm scanner working, because he could use that to diagnose the last futzed circuit in the music player. But maybe Jack would get mad at him if he did Syd's palm scanner before he finished Jack's coffee maker, which wasn’t exactly an issue because he'd done more work for Jack already than he'd done for Syd and he didn't think Jack'd really get mad anyway and Syd's temper was scarier, but it was worthwhile considering. Also, he had more things here that Syd wanted fixed than he had things that Z wanted fixed.
He paused. Huh. Sky'd asked him for something a while back, but not since then. Not sure how long. It was surprisingly hard to keep track of the days when there'd been no attacks for a while.
His stomach rumbled again. "All right, I'll take care of you, first," he said placatingly, stroking his stomach through his green t-shirt. His finger snagged in a rough patch from an electrical burn, then his other finger went through a slick yucky bit that must've been grease or something. Or possibly peanut butter. He'd had the greatest toasted peanut butter and marshmallow sandwich of his *life* a couple hours earlier, made using Syd's hairdryer. (Z's sandwich maker currently did great hair.)
Right. Now to get out of here.
He took a step over the dismantled refrigerator, turned left at the wardrobe (the dimensional transporter inside was not currently set to Narnia, though he was still trying to find the correct coordinates -- always wanted to meet a faun), dropped to one knee to scritch the ginger guard kitten of the thriving kitten colony behind the ear in exactly the right sequence to be allowed through their territory, causing her to lower her dart gun and let Bridge through, then he. . . found himself back at his hydrospanner.
That wasn't right. That wasn't right at all, unless he'd been trying to do some kind of funky dance or possibly befuddle an easily-bewildered criminal.
"Bridge? Bridge, you in here?"
"Sky!" he shouted back in relief. "Where are you?"
"Near the door that I just came in. . .?" It was Sky's particular 'I'm giving you a moment to prove that you have a reason for asking that before I condemn you as an idiot' voice.
"Okay, excellent! I'm having a spot of trouble."
There was only affectionate amusement in Sky's voice. "I'm on my way."
"No, no, stay there, please," Bridge called hastily. He began climbing up onto the moving staircase, which unfortunately had apparently decided to move to Peru. Bridge saw only the top of Sky's blond head before he overbalanced, squawked, and fell off backwards.
"I'm coming!"
"Keep still, let me triangulate on your voice, I'm having trouble getting out of this area!"
There was the sound of footsteps, a strangled grunt, then nothing.
"Sky! SKY!"
*Crap*. Bridge turned, finding himself eye to nose with the guard kitten. "Not us," she meowed, lifting her little kitten shoulders in a little kitten shrug.
"I know," he said, quickly scritching her behind the other ear. He got the sequence wrong initially and proposed marriage, went pale when she started laughing, then quickly redid it. He got it right this time. General gratitude and a promise to provide more tuna when he could.
"Go, Doer of Mechanical Things," she said gravely, in between washing her shoulder. "With our blessing."
He'd given up long ago on getting her to call him 'Bridge' instead of that vaguely pornographic name, so he just thanked her and got up.
Okay, let's see. Sky'd been over this way. Maybe if he closed his eyes?
Kat had said she didn't care how big his lab was or how mathematically impossible it was, as long as she didn't have to sign the requisitions for extra space and there were no invasions. So far he'd managed to keep to that quite comfortably, though he suspected if Kat knew about the kitten colony she'd either adopt them all or help them fight against the artisan warrior mouse colony on the other side of his lab. He coughed, and took two steps forward.
~BOINGGGNOINGNOINGNOINGnoingnoingnoinggggggg~
Bridge opened his eyes and shoved the frying pan away from his face. It twisted and spun on its little string. He looked up. There was a set of wine glasses tuned to play 'Day-O', three glass bottles made with special glass which'd shatter harmlessly and painlessly over a person's head, and various other things.
"Ah. The land of comedic kitchen implements."
He didn't even remember having set up this part. Possibly he hadn't. Or possibly it'd been future Bridge. He wished he could ask future Bridge what'd happened to Sky.
But at least he'd escaped from the earlier whirlpool thing. He sighed, skipped sideways to avoid the field of rakes, and kept going.
There was the door! Yay! Now he could leave, take a shower, have food that wasn't made by a cranky hairdryer, and boy, he hoped Syd wouldn't mind too much that he'd given it enough brainpower for sentience --
Whoops, no, Sky. "Okay, so maybe I'm a little concussed, and spaced out from lack of food, and sleep, um, I mean from lack of sleep. Not from sleep itself," he muttered, turning. Let's see. He'd left a footprint in the rice here, and he'd touched the edge of a shelf there.
Bridge followed the path until he heard a familiar sound, or, rather, didn't hear it. Silence. The kind of silence with the immediate potential for noises like rustling, low voices, or a parent making a quick shout at a kid to be quiet or they were going right now this instant because it's not right to disturb others! Over that way.
He ducked under a low shelf, and found it. L-space. Looked like a normal Earth library, well, as normal as those could get, considering how magical they were anyway. He walked in cautiously, peering around corners, trying not to scuff his feet on the worn linoleum.
There was a muffled grunt from his left. Bridge dove, finding a warm body behind a sofa, and came up holding said warm body by the back of the neck. "Sky? Sky!" he said with bemusement, then relief.
"No way! You're not right!" Sky looked at him with great horror and began struggling.
Bridge ducked a punch, completely astonished, then heard a voice. A very familiar voice. A voice he heard every night when he read himself his bath book. "Bridge, really."
Except he didn't hear it with quite that drawl. He spun, ignoring Sky's bizarreosity, to see himself with a goatee and an eyepatch, holding *another* Sky with a blaster to his head.
"Bridge," this other one breathed.
"You have what I want," said Evil Bridge. Well, maybe he wasn't evil, but it was easier to categorise him that way. Just like it was easier to assume that only two universes had collided in this instance, and this other Sky was indeed his, because otherwise he'd be looking for differences forevermore and who wants to live like that, ha ha ha-
"Take him," Bridge growled, doing the mean voice from Mr Squawky in his bath book.
The other Sky ran across to cling to Evil Bridge, and his own Sky strolled back. He didn't quite cling, but Bridge put an arm around him anyway, and felt Sky sag happily against him.
Evil Bridge waved his blaster at them, so Bridge found half a hairbrush in his pocket and waved it back. Evil Bridge and his Sky disappeared.
"How did you-"
"I'm not even sure," Bridge admitted. "I thought I'd locked off access to this kinda thing ages ago. Just come back this way and I'll get you out of here. I'm really sorry, Sky."
Sky shook his head, making a sort of disbelievingly amused grunt. "'sokay. Not every day I get harassed by Evil You."
See, Sky thought he was evil, too. Cool.
Bridge squeezed his hand in apology. "Are we under attack or something?"
"No, I came to see you because it'd been a while, and I realised you were doing too much work."
They came back out into the lab. The portal to l-space shimmered shut. For now.
Bridge coughed guiltily. "But people wanted help, and I like fixing things?"
Sky poked him. "They did want help, yeah, but none of them realised they'd all given you so much work. You're allowed to eat and sleep and come see the rest of us sometimes, y'know."
Bridge brightened. "I'd like that. I'd like that very much."
"Idiot," Sky said lovingly. "Thanks for saving my butt, though. You looked pretty damn good being all badass with that hairbrush back there."
Bridge craned up and kissed him, then opened the door out of the lab. "My pleasure."
"Also, Kat wants to talk to you, something about ninja kittens?"
. . .oh, crap.