Just a regular accident

"Uh. Guys. You're not going to believe this."

Higgins stood on the edge of a raised walkway, looking down at the Sandminer's vast loading bay. The space was usually left empty, save for specific situations. Now, though, there seemed to be a...

"Higgins?" a voice crackled over his radio. "Some kind of obstruction?"

"...You could say that," he said slowly.

"Be more specific," the woman on the other end said. "Is it going to be a problem?"

"I honestly couldn't begin to tell you."

"Well what is it?!" she said.

"Uh," Higgins hesitated. "It seems to be a diner."

There was a pause.

"A what?"

If he'd been more versed in human history, he'd likely have been able to place it as a 20th century American diner, though whatever it was it was certainly nothing that had been seen near Kaldor City in the 29th century.

He blinked as a woman walked out the front, apparently unconcerned by the impossibility of her presence. Brown haired, looking around curiously. She was surrounded by fairly dingy looking metal, the chamber normally spacious though it seemed rather less so with the giant building in the centre of it.

Eventually she spotted Higgins on the walkway above her, looking down. She hesitated, then waved.

"Uh, hi!" she called. "Don't suppose you can walk out and walk back in in, ooh, give us a minute?"

He blinked. Then the diner turned into a small piano. He stared. The woman turned around and sighed. She looked at the piano for a few moments before walking around the side and somehow opening it.

"Not exactly blending in!" she called.

"Give me a moment!" another woman's voice called out from inside.

A few seconds later and Boticelli's 'The Birth of Venus' was propped up on the side of its frame somehow, where the piano had been and where the diner had been just before. Seconds later and the canvas swung open like a door, a glimpse of an impossibly big, white interior visible before the painting closed again, the room visible within the frame replaced by the usual image.

A few wisps of smoke crept out the side.

"Let's give it a few hours before we try that again," the new, dark-haired woman said. "We know how to fly it, that's more than he ever know. And- oh, who's this?"

She looked up. Higgins was still staring; he rubbed his eyes.

"No idea," the first woman said. She cocked her head at the painting that had suddenly appeared. "Not sure how subtle that is. Kind of thing that'll make people stare, don't you think?"

"Less conspicuous than a diner," the shorter, darker haired woman said. "We'll work on it."

The two glanced at one another for a moment. A slightly-shaking Higgins continued to stare, forgetting about the radio in his hand for long enough that footsteps eventually rattled the walkway. A smartly dressed woman strode into the landing bay.

"When I ask a question Higgins, I expect an answer, now-" the newcomer stopped suddenly, looking down into the bay. "Ok, who the hell are you?"

"Clara," the first woman said. "Oswald. Just Clara though. This is Me."

She gestured; the new woman paused.

"Her name is Me?" the newest arrival said eventually.

"Something wrong with that?" 'Me' said.

"That's- Nothing as wrong as you being here," the woman said. "This is Storm Mine 5, I'm Severin, and you are not meant to be here."

There was a paused. Me glanced to Clara.

"Do you think they'd believe painting saleswomen?" she said.

"Doesn't look like they have much use for paintings," Clara said. "Maybe we should have kept the diner. Surprise opening."

"I can hear you!" Severin said. "Are you responsible for what's going on near the processing center?"

The two women turned to her as one. Clara particularly smiled.

"Sounds like just our field," Clara said. "We're, uh, helpers. Like doctors, you could say."

"Tell us what's going on, and don't spare any detail," Me said. "We'll sort it out."

The two started to climb up to the raised walkway. Severin frowned, glancing sideways and rolling her eyes to see Higgins still struggling for words.

"I've half a mind to throw you in there myself," Severin said. "We've been mining near a meteor crash, and something got in to the lower levels. Power's offline, any Dums we send in don't come out, and what little we've seen is ruined."

"Dums?" Clara echoed.

"Robots," Severin said. She sighed. "Have you been living under a rock?"

She paused. Then, quite suddenly, pulled a remarkably shiny stock out from a holster near her waist, pointing it at Clara and Me.

"You're going to sort it out," she said. "Either you're stowaways, or you brought it here, and either way there's no great loss. Come with me."

"Off to a good start," Clara said.

She sighed, and the two of them were led through the vast metal hallways of the Sandminer, past robots with uncanny faces and down multiple stairways, until they reached a large sealed door. A dozen or so people stood guard.

"Severin-" one said.

"Stowaways," she said. "Or saboteurs. Either way, we need people to investigate what's going on in there, and I'm not risking my crew. Open it up."

"Wait a minute-" Me began.

Before she could finish, the two of them were pushed through the doorway, into the unknown.