Holly clambered over Artemis to the fresh air. She gulped down great gasps, chest out, face to the sky.
“Sorry,” she said between breaths. “That space is tiny. I don’t like tiny.”
“Claustrophobic?” asked Artemis, rolling from the trunk.
Holly nodded. “I used to be. I thought I had overcome it. Lately, though . . .”
There was a commotion in the dwarf hole. A blue riot of swearing, and a scuffling in the earth.
Holly quickly recovered herself and leaped into the pit, tackling Mulch before he could unhinge his jaw and disappear.
“He could be useful,” she grunted, bundling the protesting dwarf up the incline. “And he has already seen us, so the damage has been done.”
“That’s a pincer hold,” exclaimed Mulch. “You’re LEP.”
He twisted around, snagging Holly’s wig with his beard hair. “I know you. Holly Short. Captain Holly Short. One of Julius Root’s pet rottweilers.” Suddenly the dwarf’s already creased brow wrinkled further in confusion. “But this is impossible.”
Before Artemis could instruct Holly not to ask, she went ahead and did it.
“Why is it impossible, Mulch?”
Mulch did not reply, but his eyes betrayed him, glancing guiltily over his shoulder at a scuffed Tekfab backpack. Holly deftly spun the dwarf around and opened the bag’s main compartment.
“Quite a treasure trove we have here,” she said, rummaging in the backpack. “Medi-kit, rations, adhesive com-pads. And look, an old omnitool.” Then she recognized the inscription laser etched into the base. “It’s my old omnitool.”
In spite of their years of friendship, Holly turned the full force of her anger on Mulch.
“Where did you get this?” she shouted. “How did you get it?”
“A present,” offered Mulch lamely. “From my . . . eh . . .” He squinted to read the writing on the base. “From my mother. She always called me Holly because of my, erm, prickly personality.”
Holly was angrier than Artemis had ever seen her. “Tell me, Diggums. The truth!”
Mulch thought about fighting. It was in the curve of his fingers and the baring of his teeth, but the moment passed quickly, and the dwarf’s natural passive nature surfaced.
“I stole all this stuff from Tara,” he admitted.“I’m a thief, aren’t I? But in my defense, I had a difficult childhood, which led to low self-esteem, which I projected onto others and punished them by stealing their possessions. So in a very real way, I am the victim here. And I forgive me.”
Mulch’s trademark waffle reminded Holly of the friend he would become, and her anger evaporated as quickly as it had appeared. She traced the laser inscription with a fingertip.
“My mother gave me this,” she said quietly. “Most reliable omnitool I ever had. Then, one night in Hamburg, my fugitive locked himself in a car. So I reached for my omnitool and it was gone. The target was apprehended by humans; I lost my first fugitive; and Commander Root had to send in an entire team of techies to clean up. It was a disaster. And all this time it was you.”
Mulch was puzzled. “All this time? I stole this from a belt in a locker in Tara an hour ago. I saw you there. What’s going on here . . . ?” Then Mulch blinked and clapped his hairy palms. “Oh, bless my bum-flap. You’re time travelers.”
Holly realized that she had said too much. “That’s ridiculous.”
The dwarf was actually doing a little jig now. “No. No, it all adds up. You’re talking about future events in the past tense. You sent back a note so that I would come and rescue you here and now.” Mulch clapped his hands to his cheeks in mock horror. “What you’re doing is so much more illegal than anything I could ever do. Imagine the reward I would get for turning you over to Julius Root.”
“Sent back a note?” scoffed Holly. “That’s absurd, isn’t it, Artemis?”
“Most certainly,” said Artemis. “But if someone were to send back a note from the future, when and where would they send it to?”
Mulch jerked a thumb toward Holly. “There’s a junction box beside her locker. Looked like it hadn’t been touched for years. I was checking it out because sometimes they have valuable tech in ’em. Not this one, though, just an envelope addressed to me. And inside a note asking me to come to this place and set you free.”
Artemis smiled. Satisfied. “I imagine there was an incentive offered for our rescue?”
Mulch’s beard hair crackled. “A large incentive. No . . . a stupendous incentive.”
“Stupendous, eh? Very well, you shall have it.”
“When?” asked Mulch hungrily.
“Soon. I just need you to do me one more favor.”