I never would have made it through without Louisa, the Tapioca Pudding Girl.
I was with Mr. Oddway when the alarms started going off. He was his cool, calm, collected self. At first. But as the reports started coming in he began to get redder, then paler, tugging at his collar and sweating. When our route to his private flyabout was cut off, he seemed to get bigger and bigger in his rage, his beautiful suit starting to bulge at the seams. When the blast doors started to give from the onslaught outside, he tore out of his own skin and stood smoldering before me, his horns glistening, his fangs dripping.
Then I had to barf. The worst I ever have. And I realized what's been making me sick.
I'm allergic to evil.
I felt it as soon as I got here, and as I spent more time with Mr. Oddway it got worse. And worse. And now it was the very worst.
"MS. ROQUEFORT! TAKE A NOTE!"
"Uh..." wiping off my mouth, "Yes Mr. Oddway?"
"SEND A MESSAGE TO THE CENTRAL OFFICE."
"blaaaaaaaarrrrrrrfffffff!"
"TELL THEM THE PLANET IX ORBITAL STATION IS BEING WRITTEN OFF, AS PER THE ESCAPE CLAUSE IN OUR CONTRACT. CLOSING UP SHOP."
"hhhhuuuuuurllllllllllll!"
And just like that he was gone. Just blinked out of existence. Or maybe I just missed it while I was puking.
Louisa, the Tapioca Pudding Girl has been a big help in my recovery. After the Time People overran the station, there hasn't been much to do but relax anyway. Not once has there been an "I told you so" from Louisa, and her care for me has made me start to rethink my life choices. She's there for me when I really need her, while everything I was working and striving for has become a lie. All lies.
Which is why I didn't sent that message to the Central Office. Instead, I used Mr. Oddway's passwords and logins to send them a container of scrolls that @
Binary Clam Jr. directed me to. He says he wrote them all himself, and though they were intended for humans, they'll work just fine on the folks at the Central Office.
Well it's been a relaxing few weeks here on the Planet IX Orbital Station. After the time-riot, all the bad guys departed or surrendered. The ones that surrendered turned out not to be the bad guys really, they were just guys with sucky jobs. But they know their way around the station, and have been a big help getting things back in ship shape.
Thankfully things didn't get too out of hand at the riot. There was a little bit of structural damage in the labs, where @
Binary Clam Jr. caused a ruckus in his escape. At that very moment, the time stowaways were advancing through the halls, and he was scooped up by a phalanx of Egyptian warriors as they charged by. We'd opened the cells and let everybody out--armies from a hundred different eras, on horseback, tank tread, flying carpet, and saber-toothed cat.
All of that commotion was enough to send the bigwigs flying for the escape hatches. Luckily they were mostly scientists and office workers, and weren't carrying weapons. We did have to laser torch our way through a few blast doors. And use the elephants once or twice.
Since then, KidGoat and I have been taking it easy. We were made assistant managers, in charge of coordinating with the stowaways. Which means mostly we goof off. A lot of the stowaways left as soon as they could, back through the time machines run by the turncoat techs. But @
Gentle Porpoise and the lost cosmonauts are in no hurry to go anywhere, and are willing to see what the future holds for them on Planet IX.
Me, I've been half expecting @
Junior Agent LuLu to suddenly show up and interrogate everyone, or at least @
Nova Toaster and her Time Team to come and witness this massive time-knot. But things are getting back to normal here quickly, and there's not much more to do than day-to-day space station stuff. Like moving big grey boxes and barrels around. Or having anti-grav forklift races with KidGoat when nobody's looking.
Of everything I've learned on this internship, I think that's been the very best part.