“This just isn’t my day, hell, it isn’t even my life.” The man glared at us, digging into the table with a carving knife at the same time. The cuts in the wood healing instantly told me exactly where the halo had landed. “First off, my family gets screwed by bad deals on wall street, then when I finally get a decent enough job to get this apartment some sodding halo whacks me on the head. Then you guys come in telling me there’s been temporal gobbledegeek and my life got screwed because of it. Geesh!”

He threw the knife, point first, into the table and watched, frustrated, as the table pushed it out again.

“So just how much will it cost me this time, to get the mess sorted out?”

I picked up the halo and, pressing the lilac button, touched it against the table top. The nanobots streamed off the table into the machine, leaving the table scarred and worn.

“It’s free but you’ll have to come with us,” I said, touching the halo against his hand.

“Figures,” he griped as the time warp sucked us in.