"Submit for chroniton cleansing and causal realignment."
The synthetic voice echoed, cold and final.
Hank coughed. A wet, rattling sound tore from his chest, painting fresh crimson across the sterile white tiles. His attempt at defiance faltered into a grimace of agony. Storm cloud eyes, glazed with pain, locked onto Juni.
"Cleansing... sounds suspiciously like... discorporation, M'lady," he rasped. "Unpoetic."
PURGE MODE: OVERRIDDEN BY TERROR (HIS).
Juni dropped to her knees beside him. Her fingers pressed desperately against his thigh wound, already slick with blood. The makeshift bandage – a shredded Nazi flag – was soaked through, useless. Her Chronitron hung dead around her neck, cracked metal and scorched quartz offering no diagnostics. Only the echo of its last pulse remained:
HE IS WAITING. HE IS SCARED.
Was this the scared Hank? Or was his ghost still out there, lost in fractured time?
"Stay with me, Rigby." Her voice broke with raw fear. "That's a direct temporal imperative!"
He tried to smile. "Your commands... lack... iambic pentameter..."
His head lolled back.
Interrogation & Indifference
The door hissed open wider.
Two figures entered in seamless grey uniforms. No insignias. No humanity. Their faces were masks, eyes flat and unblinking like surveillance cameras. One carried a sleek silver case.
"Designation: Flux, Juniper. Temporal Anthropologist. Omega Class Deviation," the first droned, voice empty of inflection.
"Designation: Rigby, Henry. Temporal Contaminant. Historical Fatality Variance: 98.7%. Status: Terminal."
The second knelt by Hank, ignoring Juni entirely. He opened the case. No medical tools inside – only crystalline syringes swirling with opalescent fluid, and instruments humming with restrained energy.
"Commencing chroniton extraction and causal severance," he announced.
"No!" Juni lunged forward, blocking him. "He needs medical attention! Not your… temporal butchery!"
The first agent didn't flinch.
"Organic intervention is irrelevant. His timeline signature is fractured beyond repair. Cleansing prevents paradox cascade. Step aside, Anomaly Flux."
A low subsonic thrum filled the room. Juni's muscles locked. She couldn't move or speak. Only watch in silent horror as the agent raised a syringe toward Hank's forehead.
The Ghost in the Machine
FWZZZT!
The sterile lights flickered violently. Static screeched from hidden speakers, interrupting the subsonic thrum. The agent jerked back, syringe sparking.
"…apple tree… with anyone else but me… no sir!…"
Glenn Miller's "Don't Sit Under the Apple Tree" blasted through the room. Jenkins' beloved Liberty Belle broadcast – tinny, crackling, absurdly out of place.
Both agents froze, confusion breaking their mechanical masks. Sensors hummed erratically.
"…see… Liberty Belle calling! Rigby? Flux? You copy? Over!" Jenkins' voice, terrified and fading. "Sarge says stop messing with time and get back here! Doc's trying to stitch Yoggy back together and it's humming the Horst Whatsit again! Over!"
Juni's heart thundered. Jenkins! His radio pulse had bled through the shattered timeline into the White Room.
The paralysis weakened. She moved.
With a savage shove, she knocked the syringe from the agent's grasp. It clattered across the tiles, the opalescent fluid leaking out in sizzling rivulets.
The Custard Rebellion
BRRROOMPH!
A sound like a bassoon trapped in a sewer pipe erupted from Hank. Not his usual battlefield wit – this was deeper, resonant with sheer agony.
A thick, greenish yellow mist billowed outward, smelling of rancid eggs and despair.
The agents reeled back. Their uniforms flickered with red warnings, filters failing. The first agent gagged, clutching his throat. The second stumbled away, retching.
"Bio chemical… contamination… extreme!" the first agent choked, staggering to the door. "Containment… breach!"
The door hissed shut behind them, sealing Juni and Hank in with the eye watering stench.
Hank gasped a weak chuckle. "Told you… custard…"
His eyes fluttered closed, breath shallow.
The Shattered Reflection
A curved section of the wall shimmered transparent.
Juni froze. On the other side hovered Observer Prime – a swirling liquid metal orb. Beside it stood Hank.
But not her Hank.
This was the gaunt, hollow cheeked man from her Chronitron visions. Strapped to a chair, wires trailing from his temples, storm cloud eyes wide and desperate. His lips moved silently:
"Find me."
The Observer pulsed. Images flickered across the window:
1. Sarge, Doc, Jenkins – trapped in the crypt, Germans closing in. Sarge roared, Doc waved a hymnal, Jenkins clutched his radio, tears streaming.
2. Yoggy – no longer a blob, but a pulsing mass glowing with corrupted temporal energy, humming the Nazi anthem with distorted menace.
3. Chronos Agents – regrouping outside, containment fields shimmering as they prepared to breach.
Submit, or your friends die. The anomaly grows. We will cleanse you.
The gaunt Hank strained against his restraints, eyes locked on Juni, silently screaming in anguish.
Observer Prime's grinding voice rumbled:
"OBSERVE THE CONSEQUENCES OF DEVIATION. SUBMIT. THE CONTAMINANT EXPIRES. TIMELINE INTEGRITY RESTORED."
Juni looked down at Hank, pulse thready under her blood slicked fingers. She saw the ghost of him trapped in agony. Thought of Sarge's stubborn loyalty. Doc's scientific wonder. Jenkins' fragile hope. Even Yoggy's absurd corrupted existence.
PURGE MODE: COSMIC RESOLVE IGNITED.
She rose.
Her voice was steel.
"Neutralize this."
She slammed her heel down onto the discarded syringe.
CRUNCH!
The vial shattered. Opalescent fluid exploded outward, dissolving the pristine white into a vortex of fractured light and screaming timelines.
The gaunt Hank mouthed one last word:
"Now!"
The sterile door hissed open, controls fried by the chroniton cloud.
The escape route beckoned.
Hank was dying at her feet, but chaos was their only path forward. Juni grabbed his dog tags, hooked her arms under his shoulders, and dragged him towards the screaming, fractured unknown.
"Time to go, Sergeant Fartquake," she growled. "The custard rebellion has begun."