His Little Shooting Star [2]

The Rings

"She's your daughter." She nudged me playfully. "She has a knack for pulling off the impossible."

I smiled to myself, knowing that she was absolutely right.

We walked a few more feet before O.B. finally started to fill us in on the situation.

"So, the timeline is branching now? I bet that's what's causing the power surges. And maybe your time-slipping." He theorized as we exited the long hallway and entered a larger room that was connected to an elevator.

"Really? How?" I questioned, hoping to solve my time-slipping before I was taken back to the past again.

Seeing Linda go through that pain once was more than enough. The last thing I want is to go back just to watch her suffer more.

Just then, the elevator door opened and B-15 walked out to meet us. Mobius had paged her a few moments beforehand, saying we needed everyone on this.

"Things are a mess upstairs, Mobius. This better be important." She said, slightly annoyed as she walked up to the analyst.

"It is." He assured her and gestured for her to follow us as we continued forward, Catherine joining them in the back of the group.

"The branching is overloading the Temporal Loom," O.B. explained, still not making much sense.

Surprisingly enough, it made sense to Linda though.

"That's not good." Her eyes were wide as she moved to walk beside me.

"You know, the Temporal Loom. It's in the TVA Guidebook." He continued, much to my confusion.

"The what?"

He didn't answer as he began typing something into a keypad that rested next to a set of orange steel doors.

"There's one on every desk here." Linda looked up at me while we waited for the doors to open. "It's basically a detailed list of all the mechanical things in the TVA. And instructions on how to work and repair them." She summarized, handing me a small orange booklet with the words 'TVA' on the cover.

I flipped through it quickly, baffled by the illustrations of all the different machinery and the details that accompanied them.

"You have one too?" I raised a brow, handing it back to her.

She just shrugged. "You know I love to read. And there wasn't much selection here, so I just kept rereading this. Turns out O.B. actually wrote it." She explained as the inventor in question finally managed to get the doors open and we continued forward, further down the dimly lit hallway.

"Okay, O.B., this piece just came off right here," Mobius spoke up from behind us, still holding the Extractor. "Is that important-" He was cut off as a large light fell from the ceiling, shattering as it hit the floor and spraying glass everywhere.

My fatherly instincts kicked in and I quickly pulled Linda behind me, trying to shield her from the glass that was scattered about the hallway.

"Did any of the glass cut you?" I asked her, concerned as I looked her over, kneeling at her level.

Much to my relief, she shook her head. "No, I'm okay."

My relief was short-lived however as a loud rumbling sound echoed from behind the orange blast doors in front of us.

I exchanged a look with Catherine as we all moved to walk through the slowly opening doors, a blinding light escaping through them.

Linda's hand tightened around mine as her eyes adjusted to the brightness that was undoubtedly overwhelming her senses.