Armor Security World Headquarters
Los Angeles, CA
August, 2001

Dyna Girl stared, eyes slightly glazed, at the laptop in front of her. She had her right cheek firmly planted against her fist, elbow resting on the top of her desk. Sitting almost motionless, she intermittently moved her index finger to click the "down arrow" button on the keyboard to take her to the next page. She was a very bored hero.

"Looks exciting," a voice said unconvincingly from the other side of the laptop monitor.

Holly peered over the top of the monitor, startled at the voice. It was Franklin Richards, brilliant son of Armor's benefactor, Reed Richards--late of the Fantastic Four. "Hey Frank," Holly responded with a slight grin, happy for the distraction.

The young blonde man leaning against the doorframe came over to Holly's desk and peered around the monitor to see what was so engrossing. "What IS that?" Richards asked after a moment, his genius intellect unable to decipher what his friend was so intently reading.

"Federal law-enforcement procedure. Interagency jurisdiction protocols and cooperation agreements. Regional UNCLE command structure and reporting requirements." Holly closed her laptop with a flourish and looked desperately into Franklin's eyes, gently grabbing the lapels of his lab coat and pulling him closer to her. "Please save me," she pleaded.

Franklin pulled away, chuckling, and the young brunette released him. "Sorry. You're on your own, Dyna Girl."

"Damn you, Richards!" the woman said with mock disgust.

The man was about to respond when his wristwatch started chiming. "Hold on," he said to Holly, lifting the watch closer to his mouth and touching a control stud. "This is Franklin."

"Franklin, I'm in the cryo-lab and the specimen in chamber four is reading seventeen micro-therms below optimal," Reed Richards voice reported from the wrist-radio link. He sounded very irritated. "That sample should have been returned to stasis for observation six-and-a-half minutes ago. We've just lost seventy-two hours of work."

"Uh… Um... Er…" Franklin Richards stammered. Turning to Holly, he said, "Um... I'll be back."

Franklin Richards' eyes glowed briefly. As Dyna Girl began to offer her sympathies....

*PAUSE*

*REWIND*

*START*

Armor Security World Headquarters
Los Angeles, CA
August, 2001

Dyna Girl stared, eyes slightly glazed, at the laptop in front of her. She had her right cheek firmly planted against her fist, elbow resting on the top of her desk. Sitting almost motionless, she intermittently moved her index finger to click the "down arrow" button on the keyboard to take her to the next page. She was a very bored hero.

"You look like you could use a bit of rescuing," a voice said from the other side of her laptop.

Startled, she peered over the monitor. It was Franklin Richards, her good-looking (if not a bit odd) friend, and the son of Armor Security's benefactor, Reed Richards, formerly of the Fantastic Four.

"Yes, good sir, rescue me from this dungeon of bureaucracy!" Holly exclaimed, oozing melodrama. She went so far as to put the back of her hand against her forehead in an exaggerated swoon.

The man standing in the doorway laughed, "I suppose interagency jurisdiction protocols and regional UNCLE reporting requirements do warrant a rescue operation to be mounted."

Dyna Girl stared back at Franklin, puzzled. "What, do you have x-ray vision or something? How'd you know what I was reading?"

"Oh, um... Uh...," the young man hedged before continuing. "Well, the thing is that you told me what you were doing."

"No I didn't. I've been looking at this electronic "red tape" crap for hours. I haven't talked to anyone."

"Oh, well, actually you did. You talked to me before in the other time, about a minute ago."

"I did?" Holly blinked. "So you 'rebooted' our conversation? Why?"

"Oh, well I had to rewind for about 10 minutes because I forgot to take something from the cryo-lab and put it in stasis," Franklin admitted. "Dad and I would have lost almost three days of progress."

Dyna Girl rubbed her temples gently and closed her eyes. "You know, Frankie, every time you do your Quantum Leap thing I end up getting a serious headache."

"That's impossible, Holly. Dad and I have run countless tests and there have never been any deleterious effects on people in proximity to a time shift."

"You don't get it, bud." Holly opened her eyes and locked onto Franklin's. "I get a headache from TRYING TO FIGURE THE DAMN THING OUT!!!"

The young genius laughed and took a seat across from Dyna Girl. "Sam is having problems getting it too. Okay... I thought of a simple way to explain this. See if this helps: you know how you can pause live TV with a TiVo, right?”

The heroine rolled her eyes in mock irritation, "Yes, Franklin. I have a TiVo. I know how it works."

"Okay, so basically, that's what I do. I pause "live TV" and rewind it, then I hit "start" again. BUT it seems that only I can recall that it's been rewound. Then I go forward with the knowledge of what transpired before I rewound." Franklin paused a second. "Does that make sense?"

"I get what you’re saying. So does that mean that you could go to the racetrack, see which horse is going to win, reboot back before the start of the race, place a bet and collect on the winner?"

"Theoretically, yes. But there's a chance that the horse might not win the second time. I mean, you have to factor every other variable," Franklin noted. "What if another horse in the race stumbled the first time? It might not stumble the second time and end up winning the race.”

Holly looked at Franklin Richards skeptically.

"Oh, all right," Franklin admitted, "the same horse would PROBABLY win. But there are significant odds that it might not."

"How about you, me and Sam go to Santa Anita and calculate the odds," Holly said quietly with a sly smile. "All in the name of science, of course."

"Um... Science. Right." Franklin looked a bit disturbed at the suggestion.

Dyna Girl let him stew a moment then leaned back in her chair and giggled, "Geez, Frankie, you're too easy! Like Sam and I would ever cheat like that."

"Well, um... That's kinda why I dropped by. I need some advice."

"Advice about what?"

Franklin leaned back and closed Dyna Girl's office door. "Um... Advice on women and, um... Advice on Sam."

Uh oh. "Well, what kind of advice did you need? Is it 'What kind of flowers should you get her?' advice, or is it 'How do I make the next move?' advice, or 'What kind of engagement ring would she like?' advice?"

"Well, uh... How about 'D - All of the above.' I mean, she's..." Franklin turned his gaze downward at the desk, searching for the right words.

"Beautiful? Special? 'The One?' How about a little help here, sport?" Holly said, teasing a bit, but more so trying to understand. In the months since she'd been with Armor, she'd never known Franklin Richards to be imprecise.

The flustered young man looked up at his friend, "She's a mystery to me, Hol. I can't understand her as much as I try. I mean, we've been dating for a few months now and I don't know where I stand with her."

"Is everything all right between you two?" Holly asked politely. She knew full well that if there were problems that she would have heard about them from Samantha "Sam" Parker, her best friend in "the business," and the object of Franklin's confusion.

"Things are good, Holly. At least as far as I can tell." Franklin glanced around the room and paused again. He was obviously skirting around something. Then he turned back to the woman on the other side of the desk. "I was hoping you could help me. Do you know how she feels about me? About us?"

"Whoa, Tiger," Holly said, trying to get off this runaway train before she went over the cliff ahead. "That's something you need to ask HER about. I'm not going to EVEN get into that one."

The Armor Security heroine saw the disappointment on Franklin's face. "Look, what I can tell you is that she likes you enough to return your calls. She likes you enough to want to spend time with you. That's gotta count for something, right?"

"Yeah," he responded, less than enthusiastically.

"My advice to you is just to take it slowly and don't rush it. Women hate to be rushed... they like to do the rushing," Holly admitted with a big grin. She watched as Franklin eased up a little. That seemed to help a bit. Good.

"So... Should I ask her where we’re headed or should I take it slowly? What would you suggest?"

"Like the man said about the Tortoise and the Hare..."

"That it's a zoological improbability by a factor of millions that the Tortoise and the Hare ever raced, and even more unlikely that the two species shared enough common communication or possessed organizational skills necessary to facilitate the competition?"

Holly stared at him, then continued her point, ignoring Franklin's response, "Slow and steady wins the race." Then she added, "You're weird."

Franklin's smile stretched broadly across his face, "Now who's easy?"

"Go," Dyna Girl smiled, pointing at the door. "I have to get back to work."

Franklin obeyed and stood, turning back before leaving office, "Thanks, Holly. You're a good friend."

How am I not supposed to tell Sam about this? she wondered as she watched Franklin leave.

Then his eyes glowed briefly...

*PAUSE*

*REWIND*

*START*

Armor Security World Headquarters
Los Angeles, CA
August, 2001

Dyna Girl stared, eyes slightly glazed, at the laptop in front of her. She had her right cheek firmly planted against her fist, elbow resting on the top of her desk. Sitting almost motionless, she intermittently moved her index finger to click the "down arrow" button on the keyboard to take her to the next page. She was a very bored hero.

END.

 

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