Things weren't so much going according to plan for Cristo as he stood in the center of twelve men and women pointing pistols at him outside the solarium of Potestas Tower.

He only wanted to gather his thoughts and regroup, adapt his strategy to the current situation, evaluate the state of things before moving forward with renewed clarity and achievable goals.

Potestas Tower might not have been the quietest space for plotting his next moves, but in his confusion with so many things going wrong, his mind had turned to the thing that had gnawed at it the most all day, the most excruciating of mysteries, if only a distraction from his clear purpose statement, the temptation he had to avoid: a confrontation with Nova.

So he had come back to Potestas Tower, where she was.

His mind could work out solutions to his other problems in the background while he tortured the truth out of Nova. Figuratively, of course. Now he was trapped by twelve weapons and precious seconds ticked by. As long as he played it smart, he was confident he could get out of the boss's clutches, but there was the question of how much time his own stupidity would cost him.

The boss stepped out from the crowd and looked very happy with himself when he saw who his security had captured. He strode right past his guards and pulled his own pistol on Cristo. "Stand down," said the boss to his security, and all the weapons were lowered. That was a relief. Now Cristo only had one to deal with and not twelve. He should be so lucky that his escape time be also reduced to a twelfth of what it had been before.

Cristo's eyes flickered to Stephen and Leander. And there was Nova, looking smug. He instantly made his face mirror hers. She grinned at him, so charming, and he grinned right back.

With his hands high in the air away from Louis's pistol and his own gnomon, which he wished he had hidden better than in the breast pocket of his suit jacket but he only needed to touch it with a fraction of finger skin and he could be halfway across the empire faster than he could blink, he said, "I can explain."

It was the opposite of stalling for time; he needed to get this scene moving. So he grinned at the boss, as infuriatingly as possible — as soon as Ilan Potestas moved to disarm him, Cristo could get his hand into his jacket and link away, preferably without getting shot but certainly without being shot fatally (how fast could the boss's trigger finger be?) and then he could go somewhere quiet to work out his problems — the largest of which was now that the director of Constellation Invernali, whose help and participation Cristo needed, maybe wanted to kill him.

"I gave you that opportunity this morning. Funny how much can change in just a few — very short — hours."

"So you're just going to shoot me?"

"Only if you reach for your pistol. I am going to disarm you."

He nodded at Leander, who came forward and opened the front of Cristo's jacket. Cristo watched his hands, praying not the gnomon, not the gnomon, every muscle at the ready to move lightning fast — speed of light fast — to grab the gnomon if Leander took it from his left pocket.

Instead Leander's hand went for Louis's pistol on the right side. "And then I'm going to imprison you," said the boss. Leander took the gun from Cristo and Cristo made sure not to sigh with relief even though he was so glad Leander hadn't taken the gnomon and he was sure the likelihood of his being shot had just gone down substantially.

He dropped the grin and went for sincerity instead, if only an equally manipulative tactic, and getting ready to escape, he told the boss, "I'm sorry, Ilan. Really sorry. But I don't have that kind of time."

Expecting that when he lowered his hands, Ilan Potestas would shoot him, he needed to move quickly. His hands were still in the air but he only gave himself another half a second, half a heartbeat and a quarter of a breath out to ready every muscle again and when that was past it was time to go: he dropped his whole body the speed of light toward the ground while his hand struck into the jacket pocket and the instant his skin touched the gnomon he thought of Diana's house. And he blinked. Only he had blinked and the stone ground of the roof and the boots of several security guards and Stephen's and Ilan's tan calf leather brogues and Nova's shiny coal loafers still filled his vision.

He blinked a second time — his sight black for a millisecond — his heart beat a second time, a third and a fourth and he should be across the empire if he wasn't riddled with bloody holes so he collapsed the rest of the way to the ground, sprawling down backwards, and, shocked senseless, shaking, and frantic, he checked his body for wounds with his hands and his eyes, certain he had been shot.

Next he realised he hadn't heard shots fired so he stopped, feeling foolish, and looked up.

They were all just standing there, staring. Not staring at him on the ground but at the height of his head while standing, but where he hadn't been for the past nineteen seconds.

Instinctively Cristo looked straight up in the sky, to where his head had been. There was nothing there for them to be looking at. He looked back to the boss and his people and they still weren't moving. Slowly Cristo got to his feet.

"Oh, not this again," he said out loud. "I had everything under control. Whoever's doing this, I don't need your help." Time was stopped, everyone here stopped with it except him.

Except. "Who are you talking to?" said Nova.