You conclude the budget allocation. And then you become aware of a distant low-pitched thrumming.
"Can you hear that?" you ask the others.
Leach nods his confirmation. "What is that?" he asks, standing.
And then a thunderclap explodes in the center of the room, knocking you all against the walls and blowing out the room's plate-glass windows.
Next
You are lying on your side against one wall of the meeting room. Your ears are ringing, and you feel queasy.
"Who are you?" Leach is shouting. "What are you doing here?"
You right yourself—and you realize that a young man is standing on the table in the center of the room. He is wearing ritual robes of some kind, like a monk's habit, as well as a broad cowboy hat and a belt that supports two holstered pistols. A blond handlebar moustache droops from either side of his face.
"Name's Randy McGinty," he says. "Demon hunter extraordinaire. And I assure y'all that this here is just some kinda mix-up. I'm supposed to be on a jaunt through time right now to the year 2089. Seems that all the resonance frequencies and whatnot emanating from this place disrupted my time jump."
Leach takes a step toward him, but McGinty fluidly draws a six-shooter from his belt and aims it between Leach's eyes. "That wouldn't be a wise move, my friend." You spot that arcane runes are carved into the pistol, and a little trickle of blue flame rises from its barrel. "Now, we're all going to wait here peacefully for the temporal vortex to reassert itself, and then I'll be out of your hair. Oh, looks like…"
His voice trails away as, on cue, a red vortex forms behind him. It pulls at McGinty, and he seems to disassemble into constituent particles that stream away into the vortex.
Leach, Electra, and Winston are all unaffected. Leach catches your eye, and gives you a mystified shrug of his shoulders.
And then, abruptly, the scabby mark on your arm fires a lance of pain throughout your whole body. You have just enough time to see your hand dissolve into grains of black sand before you too are pulled into the time vortex.
Next