Tangle in the Dark - Kassidor

"Wait Alan," Vic said, looking up from her book.Alfred popped into the room. "Yes, give us a minute."He stepped up the other two steps of that Dwarf-stoneportal and stepped into the room they spent most of their livesin. It was a dark wood and leather room with a perpetualfireplace, a few fish tanks, some stuffed specimens and glassfronted bookcases on all walls but the doors to the front hall,the back door, and the large and airy conservatory."Give the captain some time," Alfred began. “Sooner orlater he is going to have to ask for your help.”"So you know that Ava is missing.""We're not allowed to say," Victoria said, "and we arebeing monitored.""We want you to know we don't think you are doing it thistime," Alfred said. "I tried to impress upon them how sorryyou are over the study planet.""Do you know about the alternate veron store?" Alanasked him."What do you mean?" Vic asked."She's running in an alternate veron store.""How do you know?" Alfred said. At least he probablyknew what the words meant, from the look on Victoria’s face,she probably didn’t."Because I looked, she’s got a hardware indirect in hertime-slice invocation and it leads to an alternate store inThom’s lab. Thom’s in the middle of this somehow, he won’tlet me into the lab to look at it so I was going in the back. At114