Suddenly the four ninja-nerds pulled their sidearms from holsters on the coat hanger.

“Don’t say the R word, Chevie,” advised Felix. “This mission is pretty important. Nobody wants to end up not existing because my father polluted the timeline.”

Chevie backed down not one inch. “Yeah, well, you tell your boys that when they get back, I’ll see them in the gym, two at a time.”

The hazmat team lowered their guns, gazing at Chevie, heads cocked in surprise, like lions challenged by a little mouse.

“They don’t say much, your lab buddies.”

Smart opened a series of laptops on a metal table; thick cables flopped onto the floor from the rear of the computer bank and wound their way across to the WARP pod. He quickly tapped in long code sequences.

“That’s why I like them, Agent. They just do their jobs, no small talk.”

The laptops were old and chunky, with raised letters on the keyboards that glowed green and were not in the usual qwerty order. Chevie tapped one casing, to check whether it was actually wooden.

Smart slapped her hand away. “Don’t poke the equipment, Agent,” he admonished. “This stuff is ancient alternative tech. We don’t even have the parts to repair this anymore.” “Shoot, I got some wood in my room.”

Smart ignored her comment and continued his systems check. As he typed, the pod shook itself awake, vibrating and venting steam like a very old fridge. The banks of square lights flickered in complicated patterns, and the fat power lines buzzed with barely contained megawatts of electricity. In spots, the rubber melted, exposing fizzing wires.

The entire setup reminded Chevie of old sci-fi series she had seen on cable reruns.

This is how people thought the future would look on last-century TV. Cheap and flashy.

Laser beams shot out from several nodes on the pod, connecting to form a lattice around the ship.

Lasers? thought Chevie. It’s a time machine, all right. I feel like I’m going back to the seventies.

It took several minutes for the WARP pod to warm up. It shrugged, coughed, and hummed into life, six electric motors clattering into action at its base. Chevie was quite glad that she was not among the group waiting to step into its belly to be dematerialized. Eventually the pod hovered maybe half an inch above its trailer and the various lights flashed in perfect harmony, except for the ones that popped and crackled.

“Okay,” shouted Smart above the electrical din. “We have ninety-seven percent stability. That’s good enough.”

Ninety-seven percent? thought Chevie. I bet those hazmat guys didn’t see the monkey arm, or they’d insist on waiting for a hundred percent.