Part 3

  Bad Times

  “Another time portal opened?” asked Miller, who was secretly considering if he should be making notes so he could turn this weirdo’s story into a bestseller. “Bloody hell, sir, sounds like you were having a right ol' night of it. So who came through it this time, Doctor Who?”

  “Could I get another pint, please?” David asked, noticing his bitter was perilously low, and with it, the horrifying risk of sobering up.

  “Sure, same again?”

  “Please… So anyway, a second time vortex opened on the other side of our living room, and out stepped Alice!”

  “What?” asked Miller, clearly loving all the twists. “The same Alice you were talking about earlier? Lovely Alice from the office?”

  “The very same!” confirmed David.

  “Did she look pleased to see you?” asked Miller.

  “Not quite!” answered David, gloom clouding his expression. He quickly downed the last precious brown dregs of his glass, then held out his hand like a toddler wanting sweets, though in his case, it was the cold froth of bitter he desperately needed to wash away the taste of pain and panic.

  The howling rage of the second portal quickly subsided once Alice stepped through into the living room. It shrunk to a small full stop in the fabric of space behind her. She looked virtually the same as she always did to David, no older than she had been earlier that day, and dressed in her usual office wear. The only noticeable difference was that she now stood over the three of them with a look that could kill. Philip, though, was less concerned with her vicious expression and more worried about the white cube she held out toward them, for he knew it was something that very well might kill them.

  “Alice, what is the meaning of this?” Philip asked in absolute shock.

  “Why on Earth are you here?

  This is a strictly forbidden time zone!

  You're not even an authorized time traveler, you’re my bloody secretary!”

  With that, Philip began to pull himself up off the floor, struggling to do so with both hands raised in surrender.

  Alice quickly lunged forward, screaming,

  “I SAID STAY ON THE FLOOR OR ELSE!”

  Philip, panicking at the sight of the weapon aimed directly at him, quickly dove for the ground again. With both hands raised, he was unable to control his fall and painfully face-planted, pointy nose first. Letting out a cry, he turned his startled gaze back up at the intruder.

  “Alice, please, put the weapon down. Tell me what’s going on!”

  “Weapon?” David repeated, confused, noticing Philip’s terrified reaction to the small white cube that Alice was waving manically.

  As soon as David spoke, Alice whipped her head toward him, her eyes aflame with hatred. Then a sneer crept across her face.

  “Educate ’em, Philip. Tell ’em what’ll happen if I decide to zap one of ’em with this Time Disruptor.”

  With growing dread, Philip turned to warn David (not Hank, he’d be quite happy if Hank got zapped).

  “It would scatter your atoms across time and space. A bit like blowing up a person, but without the mess or any evidence left behind.”

  David felt like his brain was going to melt. This was all just too unreal. Time travel, strange visitors, a glorious future to look forward to, it all felt like a cheap sci-fi novel, and he couldn’t understand what the hell was going on. Surely Alice was still his lovely Alice.

  Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

  “How are you from a hundred years in the future?

  I only saw you a couple of hours ago,” David asked.

  “You saw me earlier,” Alice answered, her voice still dripping with contempt.

  “No, I always look right at you,” replied David, confused.

  Alice’s frustration with David’s idiocy burst out of her in an annoyed grunt.

  “No! I meant you saw me! P.A.S.T. Myself from the past! Phil, are you sure he’s the genius you and almost everybody else worship? ’Cause I remember him just like this, as a goof!”

  “ALICE!” Philip barked, shocked, forgetting for a moment that he was no longer in a position of authority over her.

  “What’s happening here?” gasped David, his nerves completely failing him.

  “This doesn’t make sense. Does anyone understand what is going on?! How are you from the future?”

  Alice knew she should just shoot the lot of them and be gone, but it wasn’t that easy, not at all. She wasn’t a killer. She was only here because she was the only one with access. She had to do it... but if she could delay it just a little longer by answering the monster’s questions, she would.

  “It’s just of the many effects you’ve caused, David. Nobody dies anymore.”

  “Overpopulation must be a bitch, then!” interrupted an excited Hank.

  While Philip was in shock, David was breaking down, and Alice was wrestling with her conscience, Hank was loving the drama and all the wild info flying at them.

  “On the contrary, Mr Hank,” Philip corrected, not wanting David's accomplishments to be tarnished by negative opinions.

  “Being able to travel forward in time, and, in effect, repeat the paradox, has afforded us amazing results.

  We now have access to all the technological advances ever made by our species, and by others we’ve encountered in the future. Humans inhabit countless worlds across space and time.

  The human population on Earth is now a neat one billion. Many have chosen to travel the stars and colonise the numerous exotic and exciting new planets we can visit in the blink of an eye.”

  Hank whistled, impressed.

  “Quite,” answered Philip proudly.

  “Not for much longer, though!” shouted Alice, interrupting Philip’s revelling.

  “Are you here to zap us, or Philip?” asked David, shamefully hoping it was the latter.

  “Hey,” piped up Hank, jumping on David's question.

  “If you've come to blow Philly away, love, we’ll just step outta the room. We ain’t seen zip. Right, Davey? Come on, let's get a McDonalds!”

  With that, he began to shuffle up onto his knees to make his getaway.

  “DON’T MOVE!” screamed Alice, swinging her time cube thingie in Hank and David's direction.

  “I’m here on a mission. Perhaps the most important rescue mission in the history of mankind.”

  Though it seemed she was really saying this more to herself, as a reminder, rather than to inform the scum before her.

  “You’re here to rescue us?” asked David, confused, but daring to hope.

  Alice's eyes blazed wide. She was momentarily stunned by the question.

  “You?” she said slowly.

  “Yooooooooooou???

  No! I’m here to KILL you! I’m here to save the world!” she wailed, tears finding their escape from her eyes.

  At this moment, something dawned on Philip, and he knew they were all in real danger.

  “Rebel scum!” he muttered.

  Hank was delighted.

  “I see they still watch Star Wars in the future,” Hank laughed, nudging David, who was trying his hardest not to wet himself.

  Perhaps he was naive, but Hank wasn’t worried. As far as he was concerned, the future that Philip described had already happened, and so, one way or another, Alice must fail.

  With that firmly in mind, he simply enjoyed the show, relishing the chance to live through such a stupendous adventure.

  “A stinking Rebel, right under my own nose ’n’ all, and I didn’t even smell you!” gnarled Philip, his voice now stripped of all its earlier rosiness by contempt.

  He now sounded like every Hollywood villain who had ever menaced the silver screen.

  “No, you wouldn’t have, ’cos you’ve had your big pointy hooter too far up his asshole to smell anything else!” roared Alice defiantly.

  “Oooh, David, she’s witty. I see why you like her now,” whispered Hank to David, adding a wink so theatrically that Alice couldn’t fail to spot it.

  “SHUT UP!” Alice barked, her grasp on her emotions as fragile as someone clinging to a cliff edge.

  She needed to get this over and done with. She quickly stepped in front of David and, with the cube gripped tightly in both trembling hands, pointed it at her intended victim.

  “Time to pay for your crimes, David Carter!”

  Alice raised both thumbs and pressed hard on the top of the device. A bright white light…no, not a light, David realised. A mini portal was opening. A terrifying whistle, a scream really, began to emit from the violent void being torn in space itself, and it was being pointed directly at David's face.

  “Oh God,” David whimpered.

  “Alice noooooo!” screeched Philip.