Station officials were clearly trying to prevent contraband weaponry or explosive devices from entering the embattled station. Fortunately, Sid possessed a cover story that gave him a perfectly legitimate reason to be armed: a private detective in Senator John Caddrick’s employ. He showed his paperwork for the firearms he’d brought along and received his clearances from Time Tours and BATF security, then stalked into TT-86 nursing a silent, volcanic rage.
Shangri-La Station, for all its vaunted fame, was little more than a fancy shopping mall with hotels and bizarrely dressed patrons playing dress up in outlandish costumes. The station itself didn’t much impress him, beyond its apparent lunacy of construction, with stairways to nowhere and steel platforms hanging midair for no apparent reason. What got Sid’s immediate attention, however, was the feel of the station. The mood of Time Terminal Eighty-Six was explosive. If that seething anger had been aimed at the proper target, Sid would’ve been delighted; his plans called for riots and mayhem directed at specific, carefully chosen groups and individuals. But the meticulously planned fury his operatives were orchestrating against down-timers and time tourism, a campaign of terror and intimidation which formed a critical piece of Sid’s long-term plans, was notably distorted on TT-86.
People were angry, all right. Murderously angry.
At exactly the wrong target.
“Who does Caddrick think he is?” a slender woman in expensive Victorian attire demanded, voice as strident as the colors of her costume. “That creep waltzes in here with a pack of armed thugs like he owns the place. Teargasses half of Commons and tries an armed takeover of the whole station . . .”