The Department Head's massive form filled the portal opening, her twelve-foot frame casting an intimidating shadow across the interdimensional threshold. Her seventeen eyes—Marcus had counted them, because that's the kind of detail that mattered when facing down cosmic bureaucracy—were fixed on them with the kind of professional displeasure that suggested she'd been having a very long day even before three fugitives had crashed into her department.
She opened her mouth to speak, her clipboard already in hand, when—
SNAP
The portal slammed shut with such force that it created a small vacuum that pulled several night-blooming flowers off their stems. The sudden silence was deafening after the anticipated bureaucratic tirade, leaving the three of them staring at the empty space where certain doom had been standing just moments before.
"Well, that was close," said a familiar voice from behind them.
