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Sully paced up and down the little length of shoreline, grumbling and snarling. He was at his wits' end and Emmet was not helping.

His boss had plopped himself down on a rock, more interested in draining the contents of a bottle he'd snuck out of the tavern from earlier and, apparently, trying to remember the lyrics to a song he'd heard on the radio.

"Message in a booottleeee..." he slurred. "Message in a hic! bottle... yeah."

The ferret stopped pacing and finally put his foot down—though he planted it into sand, which somewhat dampened the dramatic effect he was going for.

"It happened again, Boss. In case you haven't noticed." He threw his hands in the air. "Of course all you can do is drink away your sorrows."

"I'm hic! sending out a S.O.S..." The wombat wiggled his feet jauntily.

"Urgh! Fine!" Sully wheeled about and cast all his despair and frustration in the direction of the ocean. "You sing then. I guess it's up to me to figure out a way to get us un-stranded."

"Ferret, you're... urp! You're overthinkin' this."

"No. I'm the only one who's thinking about this!" He stormed up the little hill. "The NECESSITY is parked at the bottom of the ocean. You lost the controls to a pair of... I'm guessin' they were pirates, right? So not only do we not have a way to get inside our own time machine, but you handed over a piece of 21st century technology to a buncha criminals! So on top of everything the timeline's toast." The ferret turned to face the deceptively peaceful sunset. "Even if we do get home, who knows what future's waitin' for us..."

"You're wrong, Ferret." Emmet shifted in his spot, then took another generous guzzle from the bottle of rum. "I'm not 'drinking away my sorrows.' I'm just drinking." He held the bottle out. "Care to join me?"

Maybe it was his way of expressing grief? Denial as to the hopelessness of their situation? Sully took a few steps closer to the water, studying it, trying to suss out exactly where the NECESSITY might have sunk down. "No such thing as scuba gear back then. Back now I mean..." he mused to himself. "But they had—what were they? Diving bells! I could rig up a diving bell, sink down low enough that I can swim inside..." He scratched his chin. "No, that wouldn't work. For a lotta reasons."

Behind him the intoxicated wombat burst out laughing. "You're too late! It's not gonna be there anymore!"

Did it never end? "What do you mean?"

"Dead man's switch! Controlled through the tablet. If the NECESSITY doesn't hear from me in 48 hours, it retreats to a known safe location." He gave a wide bucktoothed grin. "You're worrying too much, Ferret!"

"Good." Sully nodded, pondering. "Good good good. Known safe location." He looked up. "And where's that?"

Emmet didn't respond immediately. He needed another swig. "You don't give me enough credit. Remember what I... hic! said? There's one place I know I'll be. One place I know I get back safe from. Think, Ferret."

Sully felt his heart sink all the way through his stomach and out the bottom. His boss really was verifiably insane.

"You sent it to Atlantis."

"Hic! Yep! The only logical choice."

"Boss." He climbed up the hill until he was looming right over him. "The NECESSITY was our ride to Atlantis."

"Evidently it's not." Emmet tried to stand up but his inebriated legs weren't proving compatible with the soft sand. Sully had to move in to steady him. "I get there one way or another. The NECESSITY will be waiting for me there. A way will just have to present itself."

He started stumbling down towards the water's edge, swaying a bit but somehow keeping his footing. Sully watched as he stooped down and picked up a small stone, then motioned for his assistant to come over.

Emmet looked at Sully, then at the stone, then hurled it as far as he could into the ocean. His somewhat bleary eyes stared into Sully's, as if he'd issued a challenge.

"Boss? Are you gonna tell me what that was for?"

"Nothin'. I just like tossing stones into ponds. Don't you? Watching the ripples spread out and out..."

What was he talking about? The only thing Sully could see were waves crashing in. "Boss. It's the ocean. There aren't any ripples."

"Oh, there are. They're just getting swallowed up by all the waves that are already there." He smirked. "And that's what happened to the tablet. Odds are overwhelmingly likely it'll get swallowed up. Those pirates—if that's what they were—they don't know what it is. They don't know how to operate it. And once they figure out they can't sell it, they'll probably just toss it in the sea." He drank the remaining dregs from the rum bottle and tossed it in as well. "All gone. Missed yer chance."

They both stared out at the sunset in silence for a few moments.

Sully still had no way to gauge what was going through his boss's head. Drunk or not, how could he be so lackadaisical about all this? "A way will present itself." What way? Buy a ship? Most of their money was on the NECESSITY. Hitch a ride? Who would take them?

He seemed utterly confident that he would find Atlantis because from his perspective it was fated. But that was simply not how time travel worked. Paradoxes existed. Free will existed. There were many ways to screw this up and they were all ugly.

The conclusion Sully was forced to draw was that Emmet didn't know anything at all. The confidence he expressed was either pure bluster or... pure arrogance. It wasn't even about finding Victor anymore. He wanted Atlantis, or whatever he expected to find there. This was only about his own desires.

"I shoulda stayed home..." Sully moaned.

"You're safe here."

Emmet's assistant looked over at him. "What, Boss?"

"I brought you with me so you'll be safe." Sully could see that behind the wombat's bloodshot eyes was not arrogance.

Maybe it was fear.

He went on. "You're right, Ferret. There are things I haven't been telling you. Things that if you knew, you'd... I've always said that time isn't a straight line. It bends and curves, and once you go around the first corner you can never see the whole picture again. All I know is that you're safer here, in Victor's wake, than you could ever be ahead of his path." Sully found the wombat's arm wrapped around his shoulder. "We both are. So this is the way we have to play it. However it ends."

Sully didn't know what to say. But Emmet smirked again.

"By the way, I'm drinking because I have no idea how to get to Atlantis. But I know that if I think about it too hard, I'm probably gonna mess it up." He clapped Sully on the back and then started back up the beach, calling out behind him. "If you can think of a better way to not think than getting hammered I'd like to hear it."

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Artwork by  FortunataFox