Chapter One Angel

Even with her eyes closed, she could still detect the glare of the sun through her eyelids.
The humid heat that it generated as its rays beat down on the sub-tropical forest below, encompassed her naked body as if she was in a sauna.

Angela Black was hot, sweaty and loving every minute of it.
She loved the freedom of being naked and she was often naked or so near to it that it made little difference.

In a hedonistic society she was an exhibitionist who delighted in shocking people by only wearing the latest sprayed on cat suits.


Only those privileged few with genetically enhanced bodies, could get away with this fashion; as it showed up every area of cellulite or flab on a woman’s body.

Needless to say she had no such blemishes and was self confident to the point of arrogance about her body.

She needed the excitement of her job to give meaning to her life, when she wasn’t on a mission she tended to get blasted on drugs or alcohol to relieve the tedium of a pampered life style.

Angela, or Angel as she liked to be called, was sunning herself on a ledge high on the side of a cliff overlooking a clear blue lake.
The ledge was fifty feet above the water and she could see for miles across the verdant forests teeming with a wide variety of life.

The hot Jurassic sun beat down on her perfect body, the ultra violet component was a lot higher in this time period due to the lack of pollutants in the atmosphere so she had to turn over more often to protect her tanned flawless skin from burning.

A warm breeze caressed her, bringing a multitude of scents from the flowering plants that rimmed the lake.
Although more than capable of looking after herself, she accepted that discretion was the better part of valor in the Jurassic.
Her sunning place was high up to keep her out of reach of this worlds predators.

Angel was stunningly beautiful with a tanned body like a Miss World on steroids, but she was aware that T.Rex would only see her as an appetizer if he caught her sunbathing on his territory.

She had set her implant to time her various parts exposure to the ultraviolet rays, and at the predetermined beeps she dutifully turned over to expose her firm bottom to the sun. She had many quirks and one of them was not having white areas on her skin.

Her body relaxed as the heat soaked into her; the mournful honking of the big dinosaurs drinking at the lake lulled her into a light doze, she needed a break after her last mission.
Owing to her various privately financed enhancements she was often sent on physically dangerous missions, it was thought correctly by her superiors that she could take good care of herself in most situations.

The British Temporal Organization was paranoid about anything that might change the timeline and often sent observers back to pivotal events just to make sure they happened as recorded.

Sometimes of course they didn’t, not because someone was trying to change history, but simply because the record was unintentionally or deliberately wrong.
It was unfortunately true that the victors wrote the history books and as a consequence the truth was the first thing to suffer.

History was very fragile, she was aware that she could go back in time and advise the German leader Hitler on his mistakes during the war of the mid twentieth century.
If she or any other Agent did this, it would have a devastating effect on her own present, which is why every Agent was thoroughly conditioned to be unable to consciously try and alter historical events.

Angel’s last mission had been to accompany a wagon train of pioneers from the east of the North American continent to California during the 1840’s.
Her job was to ensure that an ancestor of a pivotal President, who had been a friend to Britain, actually made it across the country.

The time computers had given the trip a low probability of success despite the fact that the intrepid pioneers had actually made it, so she had been sent to ensure it did succeed despite the low odds.
As it had succeeded in her present she was free to do anything to ensure the wagon train made it to California safely.

What they didn’t explain to her was that most of the journey was on foot, the pioneers usually walked alongside their wagons, as they were so full of equipment there was little room for passengers.
Still the pace was very slow and it was no great hardship to wander across untouched wilderness with a group of friendly folk.

Like most of her class she had been sent away to private boarding schools for most of her life and hardly knew her own parents.
Her father was CEO of Britoil the largest Oil producing company in the world, and her mother was a dedicated socialite who worked tirelessly behind the scenes to ensure their family stayed at the top of the social tree.

She found the families traveling with the Wagon Train kind and generous to a single girl traveling to join her parents in California.
She grew to like them all and was very protective of them.

Despite lurid stories of attacks by Red Indians, the greatest threat to a Wagon Train was from White immigrant thieves that preyed on the smaller trains and demanded goods and money to allow free passage through their self-proclaimed territory.

Her Train would have had to fight off quite a few of these gangs but she learned to visit the thief’s camps during the night before they attacked and dissuade them from attacking in the first place.
By jumping back in time a few hours she was able to protect the Train without the pioneers noticing.

On one occasion she had walked into a raiders camp just before they settled down to sleep.
There were ten of them, too lazy and stupid to make an honest living.
They had been drinking and planning their raid for the morning, so the sight of a beautiful young woman walking into their camp was quite a surprise.

Their leader, a large unkempt vicious man named Luke, thought his dreams had come true when he saw her unprotected and alone.
To blend in with the women of the time she had to wear the standard gingham dress, but she refused to wear the clumsy underwear that went with it.

Consequently Luke was hardly listening to what she was saying as he was staring at her nipples as they thrust against the thin material.
She stood by the campfire, the light from which unfortunately shone through her thin dress and proclaimed the fact that she was naked underneath it, and in a clear voice asked them to leave her Wagon Train alone as she didn’t want to hurt anyone if at all possible.

Luke forced himself to be professional and told his men to watch her as he quickly checked the perimeter of his camp just in case a group of men with rifles were backing this foolish girl up.
When he was sure that she was indeed alone he relaxed and told her that not only was he going to attack her Train in the morning but also he and his men were going to take turns raping her first.
As leader he asked her if she didn’t mind doing him first.

‘Why I don’t mind at all,’ she said with a wicked smile, she was aware of the sensation she had caused by standing by the fire and she was aware that her nipples were hard.
What Luke and his gang couldn’t know was that it was the anticipation of doing some serious arse kicking that excited her.

Luke’s mocking leer as he reached for her breasts soon changed to an agonized grimace as the young woman seemed to blur and he felt and heard his right thighbone snap sending him crashing to the dust.
The rest of the gang all jumped towards the girl, each eager to be the first to grab her body.

Angel didn’t bother to boost anymore, she simply used the training she had, combined with her enhanced musculature and broke each mans right arm as they touched her until they were all writhing on the dusty ground screaming in pain and shock.

If there had been an audience they could have been forgiven for thinking they were watching a ballet routine as she danced and spun around the campfire.
The only sour notes would have been the bandit’s screams of agony as she broke their arms with each of her graceful kicks.

What made it more bizarre was that they could hear her singing a strange song as she fought them.
With hindsight they wondered why they had simply not shot her, but the fact that as she fought them her skirts were flaring out and exposing her nakedness to their view had obviously short circuited their reasoning processes.

Angel had learned early in her career that she could use sex as a weapon as well as a lure.
Like all Agents she was trained not to kill anyone because of possible timeline damage.

Although these men were scum they could well have children in their future, she couldn’t risk these possible lives not happening due to her actions.
Knowing that the gang would be licking their wounds for a few weeks and that they were no longer a danger to her Train she walked calmly out of their camp and back to her wagon.

Trained in stealth no one saw her leave or return to the Train and the Wagon master when he reached California boasted to his peers that it had been the most peaceful trek he had ever commanded.
It was like we had a guardian Angel looking after us he said to his drinking pals in the Saloon.

Saying goodbye to the friends she had made on the trip was hard for Angel, she didn’t have any real friends in her own time and her eyes were wet with tears as she kissed her favorite pioneers Mr. Kennedy and his family goodbye.

She then sold her Wagon and goods to a storekeeper and after giving the proceeds of the sale to a poor family that were looking in the window of the store in hopeless yearning, she walked around the corner of his store and jumped back to the B.T.O. to report on her mission.

The Director was pleased at the result and suggested she take a short break, which she was now doing.

In the twenty-sixth century, Human values and morals had evolved into something that a primitive twentieth century human would find strange, if not downright disturbing.
If you liked sex and drugs and rock and roll then you would be in your element in Angel’s century.

Machines and computers did most of the hard boring work and there were a lot less humans on Earth than there had been in the previous centuries.
With the elimination of most diseases, and a higher standard of living for everyone, people of her class ie. Rich, White and British, normally chose to do a job because they liked it, and rarely because they needed the credit.

Angela had trained for years to be considered for the British Temporal Organisation and when finally chosen she couldn’t have been happier.
Every credit she earned she spent towards her goal of mental and physical perfection.

To augment her already brilliant mind she’d had computer implants placed in her skull that gave her instant access to the Web and total recall of any facts she might need in her missions.
She trained every day in a combination of martial skills that suited her body’s strengths and suppleness, and took a cocktail of drugs daily to keep her body and mind as sharp and alert as possible.

Her most recent enhancement was an ex-military boost implant that for a short period of time measured in seconds could by a mixture of drugs and nanosurgically changed muscle fibers increase her speed and strength so that to an observer she appeared to blur when moving.

She was currently saving her credits towards the next step in her physical augmentation, the acquisition of a sub-dermal synthetic mesh that would make her body effectively impervious to normal edged weapons and projectiles.

This desire had an unfortunate effect on her social life even before she had become an Agent.
In her century, sexual activity was not frowned upon to say the least; she had sex partners whenever the urge took her; in her culture sex was of no more importance than eating when you were hungry.
Recreational drug use was also commonplace and she had been using various types of drug for years.

Procreation was a very different thing altogether, when you were the product of a line of genetically altered ancestors you didn’t get pregnant without serious examination of your prospective mates genetic line; it would have been considered a crime against her family.
To ensure no mistakes, she, like most of her class, had implants to make her effectively infertile.

Like most fanatics she had regarded anything or anyone who didn’t help her achieve her goal as an irrelevance and consequently she had very little experience in the social niceties of her century.
By the time she had achieved her goal of physical perfection she was a goddess that nobody loved.

The recall signal from London came via her implant and reminded her of the realities of life.
She dusted the stone dust from her bottom, picked up her gear and after topping up her alertness with the appropriate drug she took a last deep breath of the fragrant air, sighed and jumped into the Directors office in London 2525.


The Director looked up from his desk and smiled at Angel, ‘ Although I’m used to Agents appearing in my office via QT they normally get dressed first Agent Black’
Angel looked down at herself and realized she was still naked, ‘Sorry about that sir ‘ she apologized calmly ‘ I’ll be back shortly’ and vanished.
The Director sat for a while his work forgotten for a moment, there were some perks to his job after all.

Angel appeared in her apartment and got herself showered and dressed, she favored the latest fashion of synthetic skins and chose a tiger striped version that covered her whole body leaving just her face and hair free.

To get dressed she simply stood in the spray booth wearing only a tiny thong, dialed the combination of colors and design required and the booth sprayed the one piece cat suit onto her body.
The coating contained an insulating component that gave the final effect of being covered in silky fur. A pair of matching pumps and a utility belt, which among other necessities held her QT, completed her ensemble.

She flashed her claws at the mirror and snarled playfully at herself, calling up the co-ords again she once more appeared in the Directors office.
He got down to business quickly and briefed her on the situation as it appeared at the moment.

Agent Red was missing and she was to find him and his QT Device and bring them back.
She downloaded all the available data into her implant and jumped back to her apartment to prepare for the mission.

Angel had worked with Red once and knew him to be a good agent; his one weakness was that he tended to follow orders without question and always went by the book, which was fine as long as every one else did.
Angel tended to adapt to situations as they occurred but she was aware that the world would be boring if people were all the same.

She studied the data provided and considered the best way to find Red and rescue him if required.
Whatever happened to him it was vital that she bring the QT back.

There were only Twelve B.T.O. Agents one from each major political and economic player in Britain because there were only Twelve QT devices in existence.
Needless to say all Agents were British, and Britain kept rigid control of Time and Portal technology.

This was by order of the British Government; whose greatest fear was that one of them might fall into untrained hands and cause a temporal paradox.
No need to worry she thought, in her upper class arrogance, I’m on the job, what can possibly go wrong?’


Chapter Two Dr. Snip

Certain crimes and criminals offend society more than others, at one end of the scale of crimes one could put parking offences; while at the other end are Paedophiles.

Everyone despised these criminals; even hardened murderers in prison despised them.
To attack children is against nature, as without children the human race would cease to exist.

The big man had a special hatred for Paedophiles and he now had the power to do something about them.
One of his advantages was his access to information not readily available to the general public. #
He was reading the police files on child killers and disappearances and after much thought picked out a slim one.
There was not a lot of information in the file, a little girl had left school to walk home one rainy day and had never arrived.
Sadly her body had been found in a ditch three days later, she had been raped and strangled.

Weeks had passed and the investigation had stalled due to lack of information.
The man considered his plan of action and after collecting the gear he thought he might need he hired a rental car, parked it within sight of the school entrance and settled down to wait.

At the sound of the school bell the street was suddenly filled with shouting chattering children.
The rain gusting along the street made everyone move more quickly, mothers were loading the very young children into cars and older children were walking in their various directions with their heads down against the driving wind, all anxious to get home quickly.

He spotted the young girl walking off towards her home using her school jacket as a makeshift umbrella, and pulled out to follow her.
She had only gone around the corner from the school when she walked past a parked car, he saw her stop suddenly and appear to be talking to the driver.
To his surprise the little girl got into the car and it drove off quickly.

He had been trained in the art of following suspects without being noticed and despite the rain had no difficulty in keeping the car in sight.
He rang a restricted number and soon got the name of the cars registered owner, the licence plate belonged to a lorry and was obviously a fake as it was on a nondescript Volkswagen Beetle.

He shrugged, it had been worth the try, and concentrated on following the car.
After about five minutes the car pulled into a driveway of a bungalow just on the outskirts of the town, the man continued past for about fifty yards until he came to a lay-by.

He parked the hire car and walked quickly back towards the bungalow, his long black leather coat protecting him from the driving rain.
By the time he had walked back to the driveway the bungalow looked uninhabited.

The little girl’s name was Mary, every day on her way to school she had to walk past her next-door neighbours house. Being only young she didn’t have much to say to the man who lived there, his name was Vince and unbeknownst to his neighbours he was a paedophile, albeit a passive one.

So far he had restricted himself to downloading pornographic pictures of children from the Internet, and spying on the little girl next door with binoculars at night.
However these activities didn’t satisfy him any more and he decided to abduct the girl and use her for his own perverted pleasure.

Everything was going to plan, Vince was shaking with excitement at the thought of pleasures to come, and the stupid little girl had fallen for his story.
As he was their next door neighbour the girl believed him when he told her that her mum had asked him to pick her up as it was raining so hard.

Even when he had turned into the driveway of his rented bungalow she had accepted his muttered excuse that he was just dropping off a tool he had borrowed from the owner.
Only when the automatic garage doors had opened as his car approached them had she queried his actions and by then they were inside the garage and the doors had closed behind them.

At last he could drop the pretence and drag her out of the car into the room he had prepared for her, she struggled ineffectively as he handcuffed her to the steel bed.

He had watched her as she passed his window every morning on her way to school, it seemed to him that she would wriggle her tight little bottom at him on purpose as she walked past and he had convinced himself that she had once pretended to drop something on the pavement just so she could bend over and show him her little white knickers.

She had no idea that he had already seen her naked on a few occasions through his high power binoculars.
He looked down at the girl as she struggled on the bed, he had gagged her to stop her annoying pleading and crying and the sight of her totally helpless turned him on in a big way.

‘Shut up you little tart’, he snarled,’ you are going to get what you have asked for and no mistake, ’ he snarled.
She was now to frightened to move and just lay there. He wanted very much to strip her naked and rape her there and then but he had promised himself that he would make this last and he wanted her far more frightened of him than she was at the moment.


He had planned this for months, renting a bungalow under an assumed name and buying an old car without registering it, then as a final safety precaution fitting false number plates to it.
This house and car couldn’t be traced back to him just in case someone had noticed her getting into his car.
It was also a good address for getting his sex supplies and kiddie porn off the Internet, as even if it were traced the trail would end here.

All in all he felt safe here, and when he had completely finished with her he had other little girls on his list to sample.
He would probably have to kill her he realised, but she was no loss and he couldn’t wait to sympathise with her sluttish mother when they found what he would leave of her daughter.

It would teach her, it would teach them all to treat him the way they did.
He sat on the side of the bed and stroked her legs relishing her cringing away from his touch.
‘Don’t worry he whispered to her you will soon be begging me to touch you nicely like this after a few days in this playroom’.

He was about to strip off in front of her when he heard the merry sound of the doorbell echoing through the house.
‘What the hell?’ he swore pulling up his pants and making his way towards the front door.
He looked out the side window to see a deliveryman with a big parcel; he was waiting for a set of videos from a supplier in Amsterdam and trust them to show up now.

Forcing a polite smile onto his face he opened the door to take delivery, the delivery man was a big bastard and as he was about to speak to him the idiot poked him with a stick.

The man had walked around the bungalow listening for a clue as to where they were, he decided to take a chance and go in through the front door, faking a parcel out of a piece of spare cardboard he rang the bell.

Vince eventually answered the door and before he could say anything the man thrust a shock baton into his chest, the electric shock flung him violently back into the house and he ended up sprawled unconscious on the living room floor.

When Vince regained consciousness he was lying on his back on the heavy kitchen table and had been stripped naked, his hands and feet were handcuffed to the legs of the table and he was helpless.
He could hear voices coming from the playroom but couldn’t make out the words clearly.

After securing Vince to the table the big man walked through into the next room, the little girl on the bed froze in terror at the sight of him.
He didn’t blame her, as the expression on his face would have scared anyone, so he made a great effort and put a friendly smile on his face.

‘Hello Mary I’m here to rescue you, you are safe now’.
He reassured the little girl as he unlocked the handcuffs that held her to the bed.
After helping her to sit up he wrapped her in a blanket to keep her warm.

‘I want you to stay here Mary while I sort out that man who kidnapped you, do you know him?’
‘Yes he lives next door, his name is Vince something, and I’ve hardly spoken to him, why did he want to hurt me?’ she sobbed.

‘He is ill in the head’ he replied ‘but I am a Doctor and I can cure him’ he replied in a grim cold voice.
He told her to wait there until the Police came and went back into the kitchen to confront Vince.
The pervert had been put in the kitchen for a reason; it had a tiled floor and was out of sight and sound of the girl.

Vince was thrashing around on the table and when he saw him he glared at him in rage and mumbled through the gag that had been tied around his mouth.
‘Save your breath’ the man advised in a cold deadly voice, ‘I know all about you and what you had planned for little Mary.

You are going to be found almost as you are now; there is enough evidence in your playroom and on your computer to convict you as a Paedophile’.
While he was talking the man took a thin police restraint band from his pocket and looped it between Vince’s body and testicles, he pulled it tight, cutting off the blood flow.

‘Mary will tell her story about you kidnapping her.
I’m aware that you haven’t actually killed anyone yet, but I also know what you would have done had I not intervened. Knowing what I do about what you intended, I should kill you now’.

At this Vince stopped struggling, looking at him in the realisation that he was helpless to protect himself if this man chose to kill him.
‘Don’t worry pervert’, the man said, ‘I’m not a killer by nature, but I cannot take the chance that you will escape justice and attempt this again, so I’m going to cure you’.

‘This will hurt’ he advised the terrified Vince ‘but it is better than being dead, although if I hear of you again I will return and kill you’.

He then brought out of his pocket a brand new pair of pruning secateurs. ‘I believe that your problems come from your perverted desires, and by removing your desires I hope to remove your drive to hurt others’.

He laid the shears down beside Vince and pulled out his phone, he made two calls, the first to the police advising them of the situation and asking that they get here as fast as possible.
The second call was to the Ambulance service advising them that they would find a man who had been recently castrated and giving the address.
When asked for his name he answered Dr, Snip.
Vince had listened in disbelief to the conversations and knew what was in store for him, the man waited with him until the police sirens could be heard approaching.

Not until the sound of the police car skidding to a halt in the driveway reached their ears did the man pick up the secateurs and with one quick snip cut off the pervert’s testicles.
Thanks to the restraint band there wasn’t as much blood as he had expected, although this was no comfort to Vince.

He then walked behind the screaming man until he was out of his sight and went back to his car in the lay-by.
He drove quietly away with the reflections of the blue flashing lights in his car mirror, despite the persistent rain he felt that he had spread a little sunshine in this dark dangerous world.

The big man felt reasonably good about the way it had gone and just hoped that the girl would get over her experience.
After returning the rental car, he went home and after a meal and a drink he went to bed for a well deserved rest.


There were four other cases of a similar nature and he intervened in all of them successfully.
In each case when contacting the police he gave his name as Dr. Snip.
He was creating this character for a reason.
The newspapers soon heard of the Vigilante and his unique way of dealing with Paedophiles and they were speculating as to his identity and in general pushing the story for all it was worth.

What amazed them, and bewildered the Police was his sources of information, in every case concrete proof was found of the guilt of the one found castrated.
Even so Dr. Snip was a wanted man, the Police had a warrant out for him for GBH, despite the general approval of the public.

Who is Dr. Snip? The newspapers screamed out in large headlines and editorials around the country, soon his name was on every ones lips.
It was at this point that the man’s plan began to show fruit, he realised that although he was putting the fear of Dr. Snip into the hearts of paedophiles in general, he needed to specifically target those who were the most likely to offend.

He purchased a few dozen sets of secatures and made a list of dangerous perverts compiled from restricted files, and sent a personal letter to each of them, warning them that they were being monitored by Dr. Snip.
With each letter he enclosed a new pair of secatures.

Receiving such a letter gave the recipients such a shock that they often not only cleared their computers of any kiddie porn, they often got rid of their computers altogether, believing that he could trace then via the Internet.

Apart from these targeted letters he was well aware that there were hundreds of undiscovered perverts that he would never be able to threaten individually.
Consequently he used the Newspapers as a weapon and wrote an open letter to all Paedophiles warning them to change their ways or suffer his wrath.

Over the phone he arranged to hand copies of this letter to a group of chosen reporters at a nearby building site.
As he had forseen, along with the reporters came a team of Police to arrest him.

The reporters met him as arranged on the building site, he was standing in the door of a steel container, wearing a black executioners hood.
On a wooden crate in front of the container he had laid out the copies of the letter.

The police had completely surrounded the site and as a representative of the reporters picked up the letters and walked back to the main group to hand them out, they moved in quickly.
The reporters all had their cameras working as Dr. Snip waved goodbye to them and calmly walked into the steel container.

The Police team rushed into the container a few seconds later, only to emerge with expressions of bafflement on their faces. Dr. Snip had vanished from a solid steel container.

The newspapers went ballistic; this was the story of the century, Dr. Snip must be a magician or an illusionist to have escaped so easily from such a situation.
The container was dismantled, by police experts, who reported that it was just an ordinary bog standard steel container; they couldn’t explain how anyone could escape from it once they were inside.

Famous professional Illusionists were discreetly consulted and they also stated that they couldn’t have done this feat without a specially made container.
As the big man had planned, Dr. Snip’s letter was put on the front page of every paper and he hoped that it would give budding perverts second thoughts.
It was noticed that he praised the police in this letter and stated that without their help he wouldn’t be able to accomplish his work so effectively.

All this misinformation served his purpose admirably as he was able to nip a lot of potential crimes in the bud using the pervert’s own fear against them.
The greatest mystery of Dr. Snip was how on earth he knew about these paedophiles and where to find them.


Chapter Three The end of Normality

Another day in Paradise thought Sergeant Steve Steele gloomily as his patrol car hurtled through the pouring rain. The wipers swished back and forth as they valiantly tried to keep the windscreen clear of water.

The emergency lights on the car roof were stabbing out into the gloom, and the siren was screaming out its song of urgency.
It was the start of February and it seemed to have been raining since Christmas.
He hated the rain; he was a sun lover and couldn’t wait until summer had returned, in his experience rain usually meant road accidents.
Steve was a muscular well-built man twenty-nine years old, over six feet tall, and liked to keep in trim.
After five years in the Paras he had decided to join the police and had enjoyed it so far, he was based at Stratford.

Being an introvert by nature, he preferred to operate alone, as he found having a partner whether at work or in his personal life introduced too many complications for comfort.
He had realized early on that he wasn’t a team player; he had never liked team games where he was dependent on others to win.

His favorite sport was rifle shooting, it suited his nature as if he missed the target it was his fault alone.
He found the discipline relaxing after a difficult day at work and had become well known and respected in the sport.

This Road Traffic Accident had been called in by a Mrs. Pritchard who was the driver involved, she had reported that she had run over someone, and given her location.
The dispatcher had arranged for an ambulance to go to the scene as well as the police.

Steve saw the accident scene well before he reached it, as the A11 at this point was straight and clear for about a mile. She had shown the good sense to put on her Hazard warning lights, but Steve left his emergency lights on as he pulled up behind her car for extra safety.

The rain had thankfully stopped as Steve got out of the car and approached the driver, she was sitting in her car clutching her mobile phone to her chest and shaking with delayed shock.
Steve introduced himself and seeing a car blanket on the rear seat draped it over her shoulders to keep her warm while he checked out the victim.

‘He just appeared in front of me ‘ she sobbed, ‘ I didn’t have time to even start to brake before I hit him, I think he’s dead ‘
From the look of the crumpled heap by the side of the road Steve was tempted to agree with her but he walked over to check anyway.

He was amazed to see, as he got closer that not only was the man’s arm moving but also he was trying to use his mobile phone.
The effort proved too much for him however and as Steve bent down to see what the damage was the man looked up at him and said in a pain-racked voice, ‘I must call home urgently please dial for me ‘ and whispered a number.

Steve heard the Ambulance arrive behind him so in order to calm the man he punched in the numbers, but as he went to hand the phone back the man slipped into unconsciousness.
Steve slipped the phone into his pocket to free his hands and turned to see if he could assist the paramedics.

The Paramedics were trying to resuscitate the man but didn’t need his help so Steve turned his attention to Mrs. Pritchard, as per Standard Operating Procedure he asked her if she would agree to be breathalised.
She agreed and as he expected the test proved negative.

As she was in no state to drive he helped her into his patrol car and after locking her car drove the distraught woman back to her home.
Steve left her in the care of her husband and arranged to call back tomorrow to take a statement from her.

He checked with the Dispatcher and was told that the accident victim had died on the way to the Hospital.
There had been no identification on him so he had been registered as John Doe until further investigations.

Perfect end to a perfect day Steve thought sourly.
It was almost the end of his shift so he decided to call it a night and go home.
It had started to rain again as drove back to Stratford, the sound of its drumming on the roof of his car was very depressing.


Chapter Four The Device (1943)


It was the 5th February and the morning was bright and sunny, he was sipping his breakfast tea when he remembered the victims phone, it was still in his pocket where he had left it the night before.

It looked like one of the new WAP phones that not only could make phone calls but also could probably go on the Internet, pick up radio stations, and if set on vibration could relieve a stiff neck.

Steve was actually a fan of the mobile phone he thought it was a milestone invention ranking alongside the wheel and the Personal Computer.
As a policeman he was looking forward to the day when every child old enough to use one had one, it would cut the incidence of lost children drastically for one thing as parents would always be within a phone call of their offspring.

Walkers and mountain climbers should in his opinion be made by law to carry them to save rescue teams valuable time in finding them when they did something stupid like breaking a leg.
Like most policemen Steve had little tolerance for people who deliberately put themselves at risk and then relied on others to risk themselves to help them.

As the victim had no identification on him he tried finding the Telephone list on the phone with a view to simply calling any of the victim’s friends and asking them if they could help identify the owner of the phone.

This phone however seemed far more complicated than the ones he was used to so he decided to ring Peter at the Station.
Peter always had cutting edge equipment, from Stereo Systems to Personal Computer’s and he would definitely have the latest in Mobiles, he could tell Steve how to access its Memory over the phone.
He punched in Peter’s number and as he couldn’t see a call button he hit the one marked Enter.
Steve felt a twisting sensation in his guts and blacked out.

He awoke facedown in a field, he felt like he’d been drinking the night before, his mind was fuzzy and he thought he could hear cows.
He could definitely smell grass, probably because his nose was pressed into a patch of it that had thankfully missed the attentions of the cows that stood around him curiously chewing their cuds in a thoughtful manner.

Steve carefully sat up and looked around, everything seemed normal, that is of course if cows and fields in the middle of London were normal.
He was definitely in the countryside and as far as he knew the nearest countryside to his flat was about twenty miles away.

Apart from a throbbing headache he seemed in one piece so he took a deep breath and carefully stood up.
From here I can see for miles he thought but not a building anywhere, he started walking in the direction he was looking and after about fifteen minutes he came to a narrow road with a crossroad.

Unfortunately some clever sod had painted out all the names on it so it was useless to him.
He tossed a mental coin and turned left, after trudging along for another ten minutes he saw a collection of buildings ahead, one of which looked very much like a Pub.

He’d been surprised that he had not seen or heard any traffic on the road whilst he was on it but as he got closer to the Pub he noticed a van parked outside.
He also noticed that although it was a narrow road there were no yellow lines; trust a copper to notice that he thought.
The van looked like the theme vans shops bought to deliver their goods in, sort of old fashioned although this one needed a good polish

The Pub was called the Queen’s Head, it was a typical looking country Pub with exposed timbers and Steve went in to ask for directions.
It was dark and cool inside compared to the bright day and Steve stood for a moment to let his eyes adjust, another coppers trick.
The few locals that were scattered about the place gave him a quick glance before returning to their own business.

He walked over to the bar and waited for the barmaid to serve him, there was a yeasty smell of beer that he found comforting.
The barmaid was the type that all pubs should have, large bosomed and friendly, although she seemed to be wearing an old fashioned dress that covered her legs to below her knees.

When asked what he’d like Steve explained that his car had broken down and he was lost, where was he please.
Rather than immediately answering him the barmaid studied Steve for a moment, ‘What accent is that then’ she asked?

‘London, born and bred’ he replied with a grin, ‘I hadn’t realised it was so strong.’
‘We don’t get all that many Londoners around here‘ the girl replied seeming to relax a bit,’ this is just outside Colchester’

‘Thanks ‘said Steve ‘as I’m driving I won’t have a drink as such but I would appreciate a glass of water.’
‘You managed to get some petrol then? You must work for the civil service,’ she commented.’

‘I suppose a copper is a civil servant’ he replied with a smile.
She walked off to get his water, swinging her hips unconsciously.
As he waited for it Steve looked around at interior of the Pub, it was shady and cool after the heat of the outside and it seemed to be done out in a Second World War theme.

There were posters on the wall that urged you ‘To be like Dad keep Mum’ and the windows had tape across them obviously to protect against imaginary bomb damage.
Steve smiled to himself; it was amazing what people would do to be different these days.

He looked at the price list and to his amusement saw that a pint of ‘Best’ was only five old pence all the other drinks were also marked with silly prices.
As the barmaid handed him his water he asked her where the real prices were shown.

‘How do you mean real prices’ she replied with a puzzled frown ‘they are the real prices, I would have thought they would be more expensive in London but not that much’.

Just then the radio behind the bar ceased playing the big band tunes that had blended into the background as far as Steve had been concerned and a news broadcast came on.
He listened in interest as the newsreader informed them of another bombing raid on London the previous night.

‘Bloody Bastards’ the barmaid snarled with such venom the grin Steve was about to show was wiped off his face.
Steve was a cop and he knew about people’s reactions to various events in life and this reaction was as genuine as they come, the barmaid was really incensed at the news.

‘The Germans are killing everyone in London, women, kids, whoever.’ she said, visibly upset.
Steve then noticed the few other patrons were also listening with grim faces, he started to get a cold feeling in his stomach, and spotting a newspaper on the bar picked it up with a sense of foreboding.

It was a copy of the Daily Mirror and the date was 5th February 1943.
He browsed through it and it was full of War News and propaganda.

The cold feeling in his stomach crystallized into horror as he noticed the clothes of the other patrons were all of the 40’s era.
He had to get out and think this through, with muttered thanks he left the Pub and walked along the road not caring where he was going.

He ended up in a park with an old castle in it; he sat down on a shady bench and held his head in his hands. Where was he, he was in Colchester for Gods sake.
Oh yes? but this was wrong; he tried to remember what he’d been doing before things got silly.

It came back to him he had just made a phone call to Peter at the Station about the phone he had got from the accident victim.
What had Peter advised him?
He hadn’t spoken to him at all but he remembered hitting the enter key.

He got the phone out of his pocket and checked if he had dialed the right number. It was definitely Peters number but as he stared at it he noticed the last digits of the number were 1943 they ran a bell in his head.

This was the year on the newspaper 5th February 1943. He had to check this so seeing a newsagents shop a little way off he walked over and scanned the papers for sale, they all had the same date on them.

He was in the past, how and why he had not the foggiest but it was either that or he was insane, and he wasn’t going in that direction until he had to.
Looking around he noticed for the first time that the few cars that were about were again of the 1940’s era.

Steve walked back to the bench and sat for a while, it would appear that the phone may have a lot to do with this, so he decided to try an experiment.
He punched in the same digits as before but he made them end in the year that he knew was correct, 2001.

He looked around as a final check on his location took a deep breath and pressed the Enter key.
Steve woke up on the same park bench next to the same old castle.
Steve hadn’t moved and for a moment berated himself for believing the incredible, then he heard it the constant noise of traffic passing close by.
He hadn’t noticed it had been missing until it had returned.

He shakily got up and walked to the newsagents, the papers had a familiar look to them and he was extremely relived to see the correct date on them all, 5th February 2001.
One last check was to ask the newsagent where he was, after a strange look the woman informed him he was in Colchester, Britain’s oldest recorded town.

Steve thanked her and after getting directions made his way to the main train station where he caught the next train to London.
He didn’t get back to his flat until late and he rang in sick, using his normal phone.

He sat at the kitchen table with the strange looking phone in front of him and wondered what to do.
He had gone off the idea of telling anyone else about this just yet, he wanted to understand what was happening himself first.

The bottom line was he had not been hurt, just inconvenienced a bit and apart from the dizziness when he had activated the device there seemed to be no ill effects so far.
He concluded that this must be a top-secret military device and if he knew whom to contact about returning it he would, but he didn’t.

Steve amongst other things was interested in science and technology and had read a great deal of Science Fiction when he was younger he reckoned he knew as much about time machines and parallel universes as anyone.

He knew enough about the theory of time travel to be very afraid of changing anything inadvertently in the past.
The most sensible thing would be to hand the device into the proper authorities and forget it.

Then again there was the age old tradition of finders keepers, it was inevitable that the owners would find him and take it back anyway, so for the short time he had it, he decided to use it.


Chapter Five Birthday 10th March 1972

Was it a time machine or a way of jumping dimensions, Steve needed to test it on something he was sure about, some time and place of significance.
He thought of the perfect test.

Before he touched the device again he wanted to know why he had moved to Colchester the first time he activated it, but had stayed in the same location the second time.
What exactly had he done?

The first time he had punched in a whole new number, Peters.
The second time he had just changed the last four digits
It appeared that the last four digits controlled the target year, so the previous digits must control something else, perhaps the location.

He had a hunch that the Latitude and Longitude of Colchester would be similar to the previous digits in Peter’s number, but he would have to check that somehow. It seemed a good theory to begin with.

He needed to visit the local Library and research some information before he did anything else.
By this time Steve was exhausted and hungry, so he made himself a light snack had a bath and went to bed.

The next morning he felt supercharged with excitement and enthusiasm he hadn’t felt so happy and excited in years and he couldn’t wait to get to the Library and start work.

The Librarian selected some books for him concerning Latitude and Longitude also a book about Global Positioning Satellites and their uses for the military, and he purchased a few maps of interesting places both large and small scale.

He returned to his flat and set to work, he discovered that the co-ordinates for Colchester were 51deg 53min north 0deg 52min east he was relieved to find a correlation between these figures and the figures on the Device.

For the purposes of his test he needed to find the exact co-ordinates of a particular place.
He already knew the exact time and date.
He came up with a number that if his theory were correct would take him to a place he hadn’t seen in years.


He punched the numbers into the device and taking a deep breath hit enter.
He experienced a feeling of disorientation and leaned against a nearby tree, this time he hadn’t blacked out, perhaps he was getting used to it.

He could see his destination a few hundred yards away across the gardens that surrounded it; he made his way to the main entrance and went in.
He asked at the main reception and was informed of the number of the room he wanted, he walked along the old Victorian corridors his footsteps echoing off the beige tiled walls until he reached the room he sought.

He hesitated outside the door and then calling upon all his courage and clamping an iron control on his emotions he knocked softly.
‘Come in,’ called a soft female voice, ‘we’re decent aren’t we Stephen’

Steve entered the room and saw a young woman in bed holding a baby. ‘Sorry to disturb you Mrs. Steele’ he said quietly ‘ I’m with the hospital book service and I wondered if you would like something to read while your here’

‘No thank you‘ the young woman replied with a beautiful smile ‘I will be going home soon, and I think this little man will be keeping me far to busy to read’
Steve looked at his mother and couldn’t say any more his throat was dry and his eyes threatened to flood with tears.

She was beautiful, just as he remembered her from childhood, her long black hair was put up into rolls held by Kirby grips and even without any makeup her skin was flawless.
She was so happy as she looked down at her son.

Steve just smiled at her and walked back into the corridor and out of the Maternity Hospital as fast as he could without running.
He had proved one thing, the device was a time machine and he had just traveled back to his birthplace.

What he hadn’t anticipated was the emotional shock of seeing someone he had loved more than any other woman, once again.
He had to sit on the grass for quite a while before he could calm himself.

The baby had been him, Stephen Michael Steele three days old and soon to be taken home to a loving childhood full of good memories until his mother had died suddenly of a heart attack when she was only thirty years old.

He had planned on talking to her for a while but the reality of her had been too much for him he had to go before he burst into tears.
Steve set the device for his home time and place and disappeared into his future.

He was now certain he had a working time machine, but what to do with it?
He wondered for a moment from where or should he say when it had come.





Chapter Six One of our QTs is missing.


It was the year 2525 and Agent Red was missing, or to be more precise he was late reporting back to the British Temporal Organisation.
Time Agents could be lots of things including dead, but they simply couldn’t be late.

Even if their mission took years longer than planned they could still report back to base exactly on time, one of the perks of having the use of a Time Machine.

The most common cause of a non-return was the fact that although the Quantum Tunneling device’s were virtually unbreakable the Agents that used them were not, and being only human sometimes bit off more than they could chew.

In those cases another Agent was sent back to help or retrieve the one in trouble.
Finding the missing Agent could be a problem; although they were sent to a particular era they were free to jump around in order to achieve their mission.

If an Agent went missing the first thing would be to try and contact them on their implant, if there was no answer then there was definitely something wrong.
Agents implants unlike normal peoples had a temporal capability and the agent could be contacted any where or any when.

They were surgically implanted in the brain and had never been known to fail. However just in case they did, there were Dead Letter drops in locations around the world so that any Agent stranded in time could get a message back to the Organisation.

These were normally Personal Ads in newspapers, specialized notice boards on the Web, or if they were much further back in time, rock faces, cliff sides, cave walls and the like, that could be monitored in the present, for messages that might appear on them from the past.

Each Agent had a code mark and if they were in trouble and could get access to such a place they could carve or paint their sigil and date on the rock.
It would immediately appear on the rock face in the present at the backup agent would know where and when to go and rescue them.

In the rare occasions when this method had been used it had worked very well, so the second course of action was to check these locations for a message.
When there was no message, then the final course of action was to report to the Director of the B.T.O. that an Agent was missing and leave it to him to decide what to do about it.

The Director of the Organisation was a dour man by the name of Cameron McDonald, who could be mistaken for a tax inspector at first meeting.
He went by the book and frowned upon frivolous use of Time Travel by his Agents.

Like all top executives in the World he had reached his position by a combination of experience, a desire to succeed, and the passing of tests to determine suitability for his next step up the ladder.

The World Brain set all the tests, so effectively it could determine who got which job, and it did so.
It had picked Cameron McDonald precisely because of his dislike of change; Cameron ensured that all his Agents were fully conditioned to protect the Status Quo and never to meddle with the past.

There were only Twelve Agents in the Organisation, they were the best that Britain could produce in the Twenty Sixth Century, one from each of the major political and economic giants and the Director knew and trusted every one of them, if one was lost he would find them and bring them back.

Agent Red had been on a mission in the Twentieth Century. Unfortunately his mission covered a time band that stretched from the startup of the first nuclear power station, to the end of the Twentieth Century.

Nuclear waste was one of the gifts of the Twentieth Century that the Twenty Sixth Century could well have done without; Red was on loan to the Department given the responsibility of ridding the World of Toxic and Nuclear waste.

The procedure was to locate the dumps in the past then take a portable Portal to the site in the present.
The material was then disinterred and transported via the Portal into the Sun, disposing of the material for good.

This was unarguably a very good use of Time Travel and the Director was behind it all the way, which was why he had given permission for Red to be seconded to that Department.

The Director checked his implant for an available Agent and it told him that Agent Black was available for the search and rescue.
He put out a call for her to see him ASAP.


Chapter Seven Independence Day

Steve had considered going in to work as usual but there was no way he could concentrate on anything other than this Time Travel business.
He rang the Station and arranged to take a Two-week Holiday

Lots of young men fantasize about being invisible or superhuman but he personally had always wanted to be able to travel in time.
He was by nature a very curious person, and to him a time machine was a way to get answers that he could never have learned before.

He knew about paradoxes and thinking back over his actions to date he was pretty sure he hadn’t done anything disastrous, nor did he intend to.

However in order to fully explore this marvelous device he may have to be free of his duties as a policeman, which meant being independent financially.
He had always been exasperated at the superheroes that never used their powers to make money, what was the harm in profiting by your skills and abilities regardless what they were.

He had a working time machine and if he couldn’t earn some money from it he was an idiot.
He considered going back in time and finding lost gold or pirate treasure, but even if he did there would still be the enormous difficulty of changing it into usable cash.

Then it struck him, of course the National Lottery.
He needed to know the winning numbers for the coming draw so he walked to a newsagent a few hundred yards past his usual one and walked into the ally behind it.

He had discovered that by just putting in the final date numbers the machine stayed in the same space and just moved through time.
He also seemed to arrive at the same time he left as if by default.
The next Lottery draw was due tonight so he set the date for tomorrow and activated the device.

The ally wall seemed to flicker and that was all, Steve walked around to the front of the shop and looked through the window at the Lottery notice board.
The winning numbers were chalked up for all to see along with the news that no one had won this time.
We will see about that he said with a grin and copied them down in his book.

A quick walk around the back of the shop, and he jumped back twenty-four hours to his original starting point.
He had been concerned about meeting himself when he jumped back but it appeared the machine had a default safety margin set in of ten minutes so he arrived back ten minutes after he left regardless of the amount of time he'd spent in the future.

That’s nice to know he thought, and walked to his usual shop in order to play the Lottery.
He filled in the numbers from the future and the shopkeeper entered them into the machine and gave him his ticket, he had made sure to tick the privacy box.

He had to wait for five hours until the draw so went home and had a meal and relaxed in front of the telly to wait.
He was worried about this plan, as it would be the first time he had tried to actually change the future, he consoled himself by knowing that he wasn’t robbing anyone else of the money, and the Lottery could afford it.

It was times like this he wished he had a close friend to talk it over with but being a Sergeant in the Police and working odd shifts, he had never become that friendly with any of his colleagues and like most coppers he found it hard to relax with civilians.

At last the draw came and to his relief his numbers came up with no problems at all, he had half expected a flash of lightning to fry him where he sat but it appeared the god of time hadn’t noticed him yet.

Steve wasn’t a drinker or a smoker being too much of a control freak, but he decided to go to his local Pub and celebrate, he got home late and went to bed a happy man.

The next day he followed the set procedures for claiming his winnings and was assured that everything was in order and he would receive his cheque as soon as possible, as a matter of interest he had won just over one million pounds.

He realized he would need a lot more privacy in order to experiment with the device so rented a smallholding that was sufficiently isolated for his purpose.

Jack the Ripper.


Chapter Eight

Steve was a cop, he had a Time machine and he hated unsolved crimes. He had studied the history of crime and certain names stood out in infamy.
One of these was Jack the Ripper, Jack was not the world’s worst serial Killer, he had only killed at the most eight women.

Modern serial killers had killed far more, but Jack was the first serial killer known about in England and his methods were so gruesome that they had brought terror into the hearts of Londoners of the time.
Also he had never been caught, but Steve was about to change that if he could.

Steve went through all the data on the Ripper he could find on the Internet, his first recorded victim was Polly Nicholls who was found dead on the night of Friday 31st August 1888.
Jack’s last victim was Mary Jane Kelly a Twenty-five year old woman who was killed at her home.
She was slightly better off than most of her sisters of the street as she rented a room at Miller’s Court 26, Dorset Street, and took her customers there to satisfy their desires in a modicum of comfort and warmth.
She was found dead at 4am Friday 9th November 1888.

All of his victims were Prostitutes, mostly part-time. However in their defense the area known as Whitechapel was in its day the poorest part of London and an uneducated woman with no means of earning money would often be forced to take to the streets for survival.

These women were the lowest class of person in society and were often found dead of hunger and drink abuse in the streets.
However when Jack the Ripper was the cause of death he made it clear that the deaths were unnatural.

Jacks trademark was that he first cut the women’s throat to stop her screaming and kill her.
He then thrust a long knife up into their vaginas and cut upwards into the abdomen, disemboweling them.
Some women were mutilated more than others but the similarity was obvious to even the police of the day.

The newspapers, mainly the Pal Mall Express made much of his activities as news like this sold newspapers, and in the process made Jack famous.
Steve collected the gear he thought he would need and after kitting himself out in a long black cloak to disguise his modern clothing made his way to the modern location of the last murder.

Since 1904, Dorset Street had been renamed Duval Street. Then in 1929 the entire north side of Whitechapel was demolished and an extension to Spitalfields Market created.
In Steve’s time it was an un-named service road next to Whites Row car park.

He went there, set the time co-ordinates and jumped back to 2am Friday 9th November 1888
He wasn’t sure of the exact time of the attack, as the body was found already dead, plus the clocks of the day were far from accurate, so he gave himself a few hours leeway so he wouldn’t be late.

It was dark but not foggy as he chose a doorway to wait in which had a clear view of Mary’s doorway.
The first thing he noticed was the stench.
Whitechapel was the poorest district in London and had little in the way of Sewerage systems.

The enormous horse population also added to the constant flood of raw sewage that assaulted his nostrils with every breath.
There was also a background smell of coal fires spewing their fumes out of every chimney lucky enough to have some coal to burn.

It was dark because there were very few Gas lamps in this area, and most of the pools of light were claimed by Prostitutes as their patch.
There were often fights over these territories as a prospective punter liked to see what he was getting for his threepence.
Consequently Steve waited in a dark area so as not to come into conflict with these women.

After waiting only a few minutes he saw staggering towards him a woman obviously the worst for drink.
She spotted him in the doorway and altered her course to speak to him.
‘Hello handsome, fancy a good time? It only costs three pence for normal or sixpence for dirty’ the slurred words came to him wrapped in the smell of cheap gin.

The standard price of three pence was arrived at because a glass of gin was three pence, dirty was a euphemism for anal sex which the well bred women of the time wouldn’t allow their husbands.

‘No thank you’ he answered kindly ‘I’m just waiting for a friend but here is sixpence for your trouble’ and he pressed a sixpenny piece of the era into her grubby hand.
‘Bless you Guv?’ she said in drunken bewilderment, showing him her black and gap toothed smile and staggered off down the street towards her local pub clutching her sixpence.

This distraction almost cost Steve his chance of discovering who the Ripper was as when he looked again at Mary’s doorway he saw a man in a long cloak coming out of the house and walking quickly towards his position.
Steve quickly readied a piece of equipment and as the man passed his position he whispered ‘Hi’.

The man stopped suddenly and looked straight at Steve who took a Polariod photo of his startled face.
The unexpected brilliant flash as the camera captured his image, panicked the man and he yelled in shock and sprinted off into the darkness rubbing his eyes.

Steve considered chasing after the man but as he had achieved his main objective of getting a picture of the Ripper he decided to go home and consider his next move.
However before he jumped back home he went over to Mary’s house and went in.

She lived in Room 13 and he made his way up the dark stairs until he came to the room he sought.
Even though he knew what to expect from historical record the reality was sickening.

The room was splattered with blood, and Mary’s body had been ripped apart, heaps of flesh were on the tables and the smell of blood and faeces was overwhelming.
Steve felt his gorge rising and ran back out into the street where without further delay he jumped back to his own time.

When he got back to his flat he needed a strong drink to calm his nerves, he downed a glass of Brandy from a bottle that he had left over from Christmas.
Sitting at his breakfast table he looked down at his prize, the only photo of Jack the Ripper in existence.

The face he saw was thin and haggard with a shock of black hair, the picture was perfectly clear but didn’t help Steve identify the Ripper, to do that he would have to jump back to 1888 and show it to the people involved in the hunt.
He would have to have the image copied by a local artist so it became a drawing that he could show to those who may recognise the man.
Steve was in a state approaching shock, he hadn’t realised just what he was doing when he had planned to confront the Ripper.

He had thought that his trip back in time would be similar to watching an old black and white film, or actors acting out their parts in history.
The actual reality of the sights and smells of Victorian London, especially the Reality of Mary’s poor dismembered body brought home to him that these were real live people living their real miserable lives.

What the fuck had he been thinking of, he had stood by whilst a young woman had been brutally murdered, and had let the perpetrator escape.
The worse thing was that he couldn’t go back earlier and stop it happening because he had already met the Ripper coming out of his last murder.

If he went further back and stopped the murders he couldn’t have seen Mary’s body as he had done.
This would cause a paradox and he didn’t dare risk that.
He should have gone back to the first murder and stopped the Ripper then and there, but it was too late now and he would have to live with it.

He swore he would be more careful next time and do his duty as a cop to protect the innocent from murderers.
If nothing else he could ensure that Mary and her sisters would be avenged, and he would be the one to do it.

He took the photo to his local art shop, luckily the owner was a talented artist herself and was only to willing to draw him a picture from the photo.
She chatted away to him as she worked, had he been more experienced with women he would have realised that she was interested in him but he was a naturally shy person and her subtle invitations to have her draw him went over his head.

He took the pencil drawing home and after a light supper went to bed and slept until the next morning.
Steve researched all those involved in the investigation of the Ripper murders.
The main reporter seemed to be a grizzled old chap who worked for the Pall Mall Gazette named Charles Anderson.

He frequented the Ten Bells Pub in Commercial Street, this was the same pub that all the victims used so Steve thought it a good place to start.

Steve jumped back to just after Mary’s murder and found Charles having a drink in the public bar of the pub.
He introduced himself as a writer and offered to buy the next round, Charles thanked him and invited him to sit at his table.

‘I hear you are the man to speak to regarding the Whitechapel Murders’, Steve said.
‘I know as much and as little as anyone I suppose,’ Charles replied honestly.
Steve took out the drawing of the Ripper and passed it to the reporter, ‘Do you recognise this man?’ he asked.

Charles looked at the drawing and his glass shook in his hand, ‘ Good God, I certainly do, but I’ve never seen him looking so shocked and afraid as this drawing shows, what has frightened him so, and how could you have such a drawing?’ he asked Steve curiously.

‘The artist has a style of drawing that brings out the hidden face of her subject, and that must have been what she saw in this man, who is he anyway?’ Steve asked.

‘His name is Mountague John Druitt, he is a 31 year old Barrister, he has been included in the list of suspects for the murders but there has been no real evidence to make him stand out from the others,’ admitted Charles.
‘He apparently frequented this area looking for sex, but he denies it and no one from round here will come forward officially to accuse him.’

‘Any idea where I can find him?’ Steve asked.
Charles thought for a moment and then with a resigned sigh wrote an address on a scrap of paper. ‘Can you tell me what is going on?’
‘I’m just keeping a promise I made to a young woman,’ Steve replied grimly.

He said goodbye and thanks to Charles and walked out of the Pub.
Steve jumped back home and gave serious thought to what he should do next.
He now knew for sure who the Ripper was, but didn’t know what to do with the information.

He couldn’t go to the police and tell them he was an eye witness to Mary’s murder, because he didn’t exist in this time.
He decided that if he wanted justice for Mary and her sisters he would have to deal it out personally.
No time like the present he thought, and before he could talk himself out of it he gathered his equipment and jumped back to Druitt’s house in November 1888.

For want of a better plan he simply knocked on the man’s door and waited.
The door opened and Mountague stood in the doorway looking up at Steve warily.
‘Yes, who are you and what do you want?’ he asked belligerently.

‘I am a Policeman, Mr. Druitt,’ Steve said truthfully,’ and I would like to talk to you about the murder of Mary Kelly, may I come in please?’
Druitt was a Barrister, and recognised a policeman when he saw one, their manner was unmistakable.

‘Oh very well, come in out of the street, although I am sure I can’t help you.’ Druitt said leading Steve into his drawing room.
Steve refused a chair and stood in front of the fireplace, ‘

We now have an eyewitness who claims to have seen you leaving Mary Kelly’s home on the night of her brutal murder, you may remember that a bright light was shone onto your face at the time.

Do you have anything to say before we go to the Police Station? Steve said in an official voice.
Druitt turned away and leaned against a sideboard, his body slumped in despair and with his head bowed admitted that it was him that had been seen.

‘Why on earth did you do those things to Mary and the others?’ Steve asked.
Druitt opened a drawer of the sideboard and took out a letter, without turning to face Steve he threw it on the table.

Steve picked it up, it was from Druitt’s doctor, informing him that he had contracted a virulent form of syphillus that was untreatable and regretting that in the Doctors opinion he would first become insane and then die within the year.

‘I caught it from one of those whores,’ he grated,’ I told Polly about it first, she just laughed at me and said it was my own fault for liking it dirty.
I went back to see her the next night and cut her throat to make sure she wouldn’t laugh at me again.
Then I cut out all the other bits that had infected me.

The problem was that I had sex with all of them, Polly, Annie, Liz, Cathy and Mary over a period of time and it could have been any one of them.
I couldn’t be sure which of them it was that had done this to me so I killed them all.’
Druitt again reached into the drawer and said in a conversational voice.

‘However there were others that may have infected me and I have to kill them too, so you understand why you have to die don’t you.’
So saying he spun around with the large butchers knife that had been in the drawer and with a scream of rage thrust it into Steve’s chest with manical force.
The impact threw Steve backwards and he tripped over the coal scuttle by the fireplace and crashed to the floor.

As Mountague leapt onto Steve to finish the job he met Steve’s boot coming up towards him, it caught him in the throat and with a strangled scream he fell backwards towards the kitchen.

He dropped the knife and ran from the room, Steve heard the back door slam as he got to his feet, although the flak jacket that he wore under his cloak had stopped the blade penetrating, he was still bruised and sore.

‘Oh no you don’t you bastard, your not getting away from me,’ Steve swore as he ran in pursuit of the man.
By the time Steve caught up with him Mountague was at the center of London Bridge, the man was exhausted from his run and stood at bay by the side of the bridge as Steve approached.

‘Give up Mountague you cannot escape me,’ Steve ordered.
‘Oh no? watch me he sneered, and leapt onto the parapet of the bridge from there he jumped into the river far below.
Steve watched him splash into the freezing cold water and waited there until he was convinced that the Ripper wasn’t coming up again.

With a heavy sigh he set the co-ordinates for home and disappeared from sight.
Sitting in front of his fire at home Steve considered the possible ramifications of his actions, the records showed that Druitt’s body had been found in the Thames and it was thought he had committed suicide.

What had surprised him the most was the sheer reality of the episode, he was not immune from physical attack and if he had not taken precautions he would now be lying dead in 17th century London.

Steve realised that it was dangerous to meddle too far back in time, as he couldn’t know all the ramifications of his actions.
Logically if it was dangerous to meddle in history far back in time, it must be safer to intervene closer to the present.

There were lots of cases he could consider and he determined to study the police files as soon as he could and see what he could do to make things better.
He went to the file room at the station and photocopied all the recent files on child abductions, and murders, he slipped them into his bag and took them home to study.


Chapter Nine Angel Hunting


Although impulsive and rebellious by nature, when it came to a mission Angel was a complete professional.
She studied the data on Red’s mission and learned that he was doing archeological studies on toxic and radioactive waste dumps in the twentieth century.

His area of interest stretched from the first operational nuclear power station to the end of the Twentieth century.
Angels problem was that Red could have hit trouble anywhen between that first dumping of waste to the end of the century, she would have to jump back to the end of the Twentieth Century and start the lengthy process of checking hospital and police records looking for an anomaly that would indicate a time traveler.

She kitted herself out for the period and jumped to the year 2000 to begin he search, she was confident it wouldn’t take her too long.


The Head Librarian noticed the blond woman working at one of the computer terminals and went over to offer his assistance; the fact that she was beautiful may have prompted his actions.
It wasn’t every day that he saw such a lovely woman in his Library, as he got closer he realized that she wasn’t as old as he had first thought.

She had pulled her golden blonde hair into a severe bun, and was wearing heavy rimmed glasses through which she was glaring at the screen.
‘Can I be of any help?’ he whispered to her.
She looked up at him and with a brilliant smile answered ‘Yes please, I cannot get this information to download to my modem’

He sorted out the correct cables and soon the data was being transferred to his satisfaction.
‘Are you a student?’ he queried
‘No, I’m with the police, we are trying to find a missing person.’

He could believe she was a policewoman, she had swimmers shoulders and her arms were unobtrusively muscular.
‘I’m glad I could help, I hope you find the person.’

The woman thanked him and as she stood up to leave, he realized with a start that she was over six foot tall.
He watched her leave and noticed that although she was wearing a frumpy cardigan and a long tweed skirt she walked with a smooth catlike grace.
Must be working undercover he thought to himself.

Angel had learned to hide her true appearance when working in the past, the last thing she needed was to be surrounded by testosterone driven males everywhere she went.
She went back to her rented apartment and transferred the data from the Library into her cranial implant for processing.

The computer in her skull was cutting edge Twenty Sixth Century technology; it made short work of correlating the data and presenting it to her in a digestible form.
Angel had chosen to have the information fed directly into her optical cortex, and only had to close her eyes to see the relevant facts parade themselves across her field of vision.

The sheer number of unidentified dead people during the period concerned was depressing, but she could narrow it down by eliminating all the females, and only considering those males that fell into Agent Reds apparent age group.

This still left more than a hundred possibilities to investigate but she had expected this and was determined to work her way through them until she found Red.
Although Red wasn’t as enhanced as she was she knew it would take something out of the ordinary to hurt him, let alone kill him.

She still had hopes of finding him unharmed but with a non-functional QT Device.
However she had to follow procedure and eliminate all the recorded John Does first.

If he was dead it must have happened so fast he didn’t have a chance to jump out, so it seemed that he would be filed under accidental death rather than drug related, this further narrowed the list of victims and she allowed herself a little hope that it wouldn’t take long to find him.

Once she had a manageable shortlist she would then jump to the scene of each death to see if she could identify the body.
Theoretically she could prevent his death if indeed he was dead, but that may cause a paradox and as a Time Agent she was indoctrinated to be incapable of deliberately risking a paradox.


No if Red was dead he would have to stay that way, all she could do was retrieve his QT Device and record the manner of his passing for B.T.O. records.
She shrugged and jumped to the first possibility on her list.


Four weeks later she stood at the accident scene of her last possibility and felt totally depressed, this man wasn’t Red either; she had worked her way down the entire list and had nothing to show for it.

She had covered the time period from the first recorded dumping to December 31st 2000 and no trace of Red yet she knew that he was a by the book type of chap and wouldn’t have strayed over the set period unless ordered.

She went over his orders again, he was to cover all toxic and nuclear dumps between the first recorded dump to the end of the Twentieth Century.
In desperation she did something she always avoided if at all possible, she contacted the World Brain.

In her century the effective ruler of the world was a conglomeration of all the mainframe computers in the world connected to each other via the World Web, it had a scientific name but it was known to all and sundry as the World Brain.

Its advice was always the best; governments, international companies and world leaders had learned to act on its suggestions.
It had no personal agenda and although many learned papers had been written about the possibility that it had evolved into an Artificial Intelligence there was no scientific evidence to support the theory.

Angel was proud of her intelligence and hated having to admit defeat to anyone even a machine, but she knew it was her best chance to salvage her mission.
Anyone could contact it and millions of people did just that, consequently there was always a queue in cyberspace, but being a B.T.O Agent did have its perks and she was inserted into the head of the line..

She ‘heard’ a bell toll in her implant, this was its way of letting the supplicant know they had its attention.
She wasted no time in downloading all available information to the World Brain, with her request for help in finding Red.

She closed her eyes and prepared herself for its answer.
GOOD EVENING AGENT BLACK, I HAVE STUDIED YOUR DATA AND HAVE DISCOVERED YOUR ERROR.
‘OK hit me with it’ she responded mentally.
YOU LIMITED YOUR SEARCH PARAMETERS TO END ON 31ST DECEMBER 2000
‘Yes, the end of the Twentieth century’ she replied.
ERROR, THE TWENTIETH CENTURY ENDED ON 31ST
DECEMBER 2001.

Angel went scarlet with embarrassment, it was such a stupid mistake to make that she felt like kicking herself.
Although most people assumed a century ended in round figures technically they were wrong, as a pedantic would delight in pointing out.

The World Brain was such a pedantic, and so was Agent Red.
She swallowed her hurt feelings and after thanking the World Brain severed the connection.
She had to start again, but at least she only had one years worth of John Does to sift through.

It took her another week to find Red, he had been the victim of a road accident and when she jumped back to the relevant time she was able to identify him in the hospital morgue.

Having the correct documents, she claimed to be his sister and was given his personal effects.
The QT Device was not amongst them, leaving the hospital she arranged for the Organisation to retrieve the body.

The details of the accident were on record as were the names of all those involved, she started investigating them all, one at a time.

They were all relatively easy to eliminate from her enquiries except for the police sergeant Stephen Steele.
He had left his flat in London without a forwarding address; she had to resort to jumping back to his last known position and following him about to see what he did.

Only after inexplicably losing him a few times did she realize that not only did he have the device the idiot was actually using it.
What the Hell was he playing at, she couldn’t believe anyone could be so stupid as to play with a QT Device without any training in temporal science whatsoever.

Anyway that was then, this is now and she determined to break in to his house that night and simply steal it. That would stop his foolishness once and for all.
No sooner had she decided on her course of action than her recall to base came on her implant, and with a sigh of frustration she jumped back to the future.


She gave her report to the Director and sat by his desk as he skimmed through it.
‘Well done Agent Black, a very tenacious investigation and we appreciate your efforts in locating the missing device.’

‘Thank you, but if you had not called me in I would have retrieved it by now.’ she answered.
‘We are well aware of that, which is why we recalled you’.
Angel was lost for words, but finally got over her surprise at the Directors statement sufficiently to ask why she couldn’t have been left to retrieve the Device as she had planned.

‘Apparently not only are we to leave the QT Device in the hands of this primitive, but someone is to go back and train him in its use.’ The Director answered wryly.
‘What? Who? This is madness; it goes against all we have been taught. Whose stupid idea is this?’

She was so incensed she had leapt to her feet and was leaning over his desk and all but yelling at him.
The Director found himself staring down her not inconsiderable cleavage as her chest heaved in frustration and outrage.
Wrenching his mind back to the question he answered her in three words ‘The World Brain’.

His quiet answer took the breath out of her and she abruptly sat back down in her chair.
‘Oh’
‘Yes, Oh, just about covers it I think ‘ he agreed gently.
‘Why?
‘We don’t know, the human component of the World Government have no idea why this should be, but the World Brain insists that this is the optimum course of action for the benefit of Mankind.’

‘Wow, the benefit of Mankind no less, I’m impressed.’ she whispered sarcastically. ‘Oh well that’s your problem now, if its alright with you I’ll return to my duties and wash the dust of the Twentieth century out of my hair’.

‘It’s fine by me’ the Director said amicably ‘ but it isn’t up to me, you see the teacher of this primitive has already been chosen and is to go and join him immediately.
‘What poor bastard drew that mission’? She asked.
‘I’ll give you one guess’ he answered, trying not to smile.

His secretary heard her scream of outrage through the thick oak door and smiled to herself.
Served the stuck up bitch right she thought, no woman should have tits like that, they didn’t have the decency to droop and it was obvious she didn’t wear a bra.


Chapter Ten Steve meets Angel

Steve woke up with the sensation of a weight on his chest, as his eyes focused blurrily he found himself looking up at a naked woman sitting astride him.
His bemused smile vanished abruptly as he noticed that she had his shock baton hovering just above his nose.

‘Good morning primitive, how do you do’ she said,’ Do I have your attention?’
Steve thought of various things he might say or do that ranged from the sensible to the suicidal and decided to do nothing at all whilst the baton was a factor.

‘Is the baton, the phallic component of this sexual fantasy?’ he asked pleasantly.
‘You think I’m a sexual fantasy?’ the young woman giggled despite her attempt to be haughty, ‘I may be sexual but I’m not a fantasy I’m afraid.’

Giggling made her breasts bounce up and down and as his attention was focused on their gyrations he realized that she was not in fact naked but was wearing a one-piece cat suit, it was a beige colour and the material was slightly furry.
It left so little to the imagination however that it could have been sprayed on her.

‘Have we met?’ he asked politely.
‘Yes and no,’ she answered ‘I’ve been following you around for a while and I decided it was time I introduced myself.

I am Agent Angela Black, pleased to meet you I’m sure.’
‘Stephen Steele, and I would be more pleased to see you without the baton.’
‘Oh that, it was just to get your attention, I don’t need it anyway’, and she tossed it onto the floor.


‘Agent Black you say, I assume you have come about the Time Machine, I knew it was too good to last, are you MI5 or some military version of it?’
‘Call me Angel, and no I’m not from any of those, I work for the British Temporal Organization’.

‘Can I ask you a personal question please? He whispered.
‘Go ahead’
‘How much do you weigh?’
‘What kind of question is that to ask a lady, why would you possibly want to know that for?’

‘Because you are sitting on my chest and I’m finding it hard to breath.’
‘Oh I’m so sorry I was so comfortable I didn’t realize’
One second she was sitting astride him, the next second she seemed to blur and was standing at the foot of his bed.

Angel searched through her data on social niceties of the Twentieth Century for an acceptable way of breaking the ice, dismissing her first thought of offering him sex, she decided on option two.
‘Would you like a cup of tea?’ she asked him, ‘I’ll make it’ and she retreated into his kitchen and put the kettle on.

He watched in fascination as she walked away from him, her apparently naked furry bottom swaying enticingly and he realized that having a semi naked woman sitting on him had upset the balance of his hormones in a big way.
‘I’ll just take a shower’ he called out as he ran to the bathroom.

By the time she had made the tea with his primitive equipment he had composed himself, showered, shaved and dressed in shirt and jeans.
She had also made toast and as he sat down with her at the kitchen table, he felt less like Alice in Wonderland as his police training reasserted itself.

‘Can I see some ID please? He asked reasonably, as she passed the butter.
She laid her QT Device on the table, ‘Will this do?’ she asked sweetly.
He had studied his own device so thoroughly that he recognized hers for what it was instantly.

‘So what is the British Temporal Organization? I didn’t know we had one’
Angel explained as best she could and Steve followed most of it until she mentioned that they were based in the Twenty Sixth Century, he was so surprised that he dropped his toast.

‘Fair enough’ he conceded ‘I enjoyed it while it lasted, is this where you take my device and disappear?’
‘Had you asked me that yesterday the answer would have been yes of course, but as of today it is no.’

Steve was puzzled, ‘so what’s to become of my device then? If you aren’t here to retrieve it why are you here?’
‘Orders I’m afraid, I’ve been instructed to teach you how to use it properly but apart from that you can do what you like with it.

To give himself time to digest this astonishing information, Steve busied himself with his breakfast whilst appraising the woman sitting across from him.
She was a beautiful blonde, with blue eyes and a body like a gymnast with breasts.

He assumed they were silicon as they thrust out at him defying gravity although she obviously didn’t wear a bra under that cat suit.
Angel noticed his subtle inspection as she had noticed thousands of other inspections from males both subtle and overt and knew what he was thinking from long experience.

‘They are totally real, they stay up because of my muscle tone which is excellent’ she stated proudly.
Steve had the grace to be embarrassed and decided that he had better get back to business,

‘These things must be very expensive, so why would anyone let me keep it?’
‘It’s not so much that they are expensive, although they cost about a Billion New Pounds each, it’s that there are only Twelve in existence because of their potential for creating temporal disaster,’ she answered.

‘How did you get one?’
She explained to him about the years of training she had undergone to prove she could be trusted to use a QT Device.
‘You refer to it as a QT Device, why is it called that?’

‘It relies on the phenomenon of Quantum Tunneling discovered by a Dr. Nimtz in the Twentieth Century to open a type of wormhole that connects any two points in space or time.
If you want any further details you will have to ask our scientists, I just press the buttons’.

‘Fascinating, so they are complicated, rare and very expensive and yet you are giving me one to play with, despite the fact that I haven’t trained for years to be worthy of it.’
‘Tell me about it’ Angel said darkly ‘If the orders had come from anywhere else we would have ignored them and taken it off you.’

‘So who or what is so powerful that they can boss your B.T.O. about?’
‘The World Brain no less,’ and she gave him a quick briefing on the giant computer and its role in her century.

‘Well please thank it for me the next time you see it, but I normally work alone and I have my own agenda as far as the Time Machine is concerned’
‘Tough, you now have a silent partner whether you like it or not.
I always follow orders and I’ve been ordered to teach you how to use the QT properly and I intend to do just that.’ She finished her declaration by sticking out her tongue at him.
Steve laughed out loud at her cuteness and he realized that he had nothing to lose in the arrangement.
‘Why did you laugh? She asked.
‘Because your so cute’ he replied with a smile.

‘Cute am I’ she said in an ominous tone and walking over to the shock baton she picked it up and approached Steve.
‘Still sitting at the breakfast table he had little room for maneuver and watched as Angel held the baton in both hands and with little show of effort snapped the heavy duty plastic cleanly in two.
She put the pieces neatly on the table in front of Steve.

‘I’m a B.T.O. agent mister, and I’m a lot more than cute’ she told him seriously.
‘I apologise Angel no disrespect intended I assure you,’ Steve said contritely, ‘can you tell me how you did that?’
Angel smiled at him, she loved a new audience and sitting back down at the table she told him about her quest for perfection in body and mind.

‘I see now why you are so beautiful, in a society that manipulates genes I assume most people are like you’ he said.
‘It’s generally considered sufficient to be born healthy and intelligent, there are restrictions on what can be done to the prospective person before they are born’, she said
‘Enough lectures, what were you doing with the QT and how can I help’.

Steve explained that he was a policeman, and that he had determined to use the advantage the Device gave him to fight the child murderers and pedophiles of his time.
He described his actions so far and his thoughts on how the QT Device worked.

He had expected to shock her by describing what he had done to the perverts and was pleasantly surprised to hear that she agreed with his methods wholeheartedly.
Angel explained that in her century while sex was of no special importance, children were very valuable and the thought that there were people who would hurt and kill them shocked her profoundly.

Although there were still mentally sick people in her time the law enforcement agencies had a 98% conviction rate so things were not too bad.
‘I feel that I should admit surprise at the way you handled the Ripper episode,’ Angel said to him seriously. ‘Most primitives with a Time travel device would have tried to stop him killing anyone and would have caused a massive temporal disruption.’

‘How do you mean, disruption?’
‘It was directly because of the Ripper that the political will was created to form the first London Council and Whitechapel was provided with the new electric street lights a bare three months after the last Ripper murder.’

She told him as she scanned through the data provided by her implant on the period. ‘Unfortunately it took the Ripper to improve the whole area that was known as Whitechapel, had he not existed things would have gone on as before and London’s history would have been profoundly different.’

Steve thought it best not to tell her that he hadn’t considered stopping the Ripper, it had only been to satisfy his curiosity as to who it was that had got him involved in the first place.

Anyway it appeared that he now had a partner and the best way to test this new partnership was to try it in the field.
He reached for a police file.



Chapter Eleven Redemption


Steve opened the file that had been bothering him for some time, as Dr. Snip he believed he had the answer to most of the male pedophiles, but this case involved a man and a woman preying on young children.

They had eventually been caught but not until they had raped and killed seven children from the local area.
The man had often been interviewed but he was always given an alibi by his sister who was the woman involved.

It wasn’t until they were spotted together picking up a young girl that the police realized that they were looking for a team rather than a single pedophile.
Steve intended to jump back and punish them, but he didn’t know what to do about the woman.

‘If you want to help me then I may need your input on this case ‘ he said and passed her the file.
Angel spent several minutes reading the file while he cleared up the breakfast things.
She learned that the woman had been the one who lured the children into the car.

Angel reasoned that if she was to lightly run her fingernails across the woman’s face, the next child to see her would run away in horror.
When she had finished she simply said ‘Leave the woman to me.’

Steve put together a plan that should work if all went right, he was unused to having to include a partner in his plans but he was quietly confident it would work.


Evie loved Errol even though he hurt her, he was sodomising her again, he never made love to her.
He needed to force sex on her to satisfy himself so she had learned to use plenty of lubricant as if she didn’t she would be sore for days.

She wriggled her bottom to encourage his efforts, she knew he liked her to struggle and it made him finish quicker.
She was dressed as a schoolgirl and tied over a desk in his schoolroom set; her white cotton panties had been pulled down to her ankles.

He had been pounding away at her for a long while and she knew she would have to do something special before he got frustrated with her.
‘Oh Teacher I’m sorry I’ve been a bad little girl’ she cried piteously ‘ please don’t spank my naked little botty with your big hard cane’.

Fortunately it worked this time and with a grunt he finished with her and walked over to the drinks cabinet for a whiskey.
He waited until he had finished his drink before he walked back over to her, she was still in the same position and knew he was angry at her when he picked up the bamboo cane and slashed it across her naked buttocks.

The sudden pain made her scream out.
‘You know what the bloody problem is don’t you whore, it’s you, your getting old and boring.’
He slashed the cane across her again and again until her bottom was striped in red weal’s and tears ran down her face.

‘I’m sorry Errol I can’t help getting older it’s not my fault, you know I love you,’ she sobbed.
His anger faded as she begged him to forgive her and he finally released her from her bonds and told her to get him a cigarette.
Errol went into the bedroom and lay back on the bed to consider what to do about Evie.

His sister was getting old and no longer excited him like she did when she was younger.
He thought he had done a good job of training her; he had been dominating her since even before their parents had died in that accidental fire, two years ago.

He had taken her virginity when she was very young, and through a mixture of threats and pain had managed to keep their relationship a secret for the next six years.

This was made easier by the fact that their parents were always out and about in the evenings, and had never had much time to spare for either of them.
When their parents died he had the house and monies left to him, and without risk of discovery he had subjected her to every type of sexual act he could imagine.

He had also been able to purchase a computer and surfed the Internet to contact those of a like mind, i.e. Pedophiles and child pornographers.
He had a large collection of pornography and had hosted a few parties in his custom built basement.

This had been decorated to look like Hell, with various torture devices that he had purchased from Sadomasochist outlets and a colour scheme that was predominantly red and black.
As a final touch he had sound effect tapes that gave a background noise of men and women moaning and screaming in pain.

To impress these visitors he often let them use Evie to satisfy their twisted pleasures.
These people were quite willing to let him have sex with them in return, which he often did, but they were normally too old for his taste and didn’t satisfy him.
What he needed was another very young girl and he knew where to get one.

Errol didn’t have to work so he had plenty of time to cruise around in his car; during this activity he had noticed an infants school about a mile from his home.
He had observed that although their mothers picked up most of the children, some of them walked home.

Of these a few used a route that took them along quiet roads where he could pull up beside them and persuade them to get into his car.
The problem was children today were always being told not to talk to strange men and not to get into cars with strange men.

What he needed was a woman to talk to the kids and to invite them into the car on some pretext, ‘Evie’ he yelled, ‘come here now, I’ve got a job for you.’
She had needed a good smacking before she had agreed to his plan but he had got his own way as he always did.
Errol decided to go ‘fishing’ tomorrow when the school kids went home

It was late in the evening when the doorbell rang, Errol by his nature was a suspicious man and discouraged casual callers.
He had installed a security system that enabled him to tell people to go away without them even seeing him.

He looked at the security screen and saw a beautiful blonde woman in a fur coat standing in the porch, a big man stood a few paces to her rear.
He keyed the speaker on, ‘Who are you and what do you want? He asked the woman suspiciously
She looked up and seeing the camera smiled straight into it, ‘Hello my name is Angel, you must be Beelzebub?’

He recognized his codename from the Internet site where he contacted his friends.
‘I don’t recognize you’ he answered her cautiously.
‘I’m new in town and looking for some fun, are you interested? She opened her fur coat to show him that she wore a rubber cat suit that left her breasts and crotch bare.

Errol’s first fear that she was a policewoman vanished as he knew that a policewoman wouldn’t wear such revealing clothes just to bother him.
‘Who’s the man?
‘Oh him? He’s just my slave don’t concern yourself with him’ she said dismissively.

Errol was aware that some of his friends kept slaves similar to his Evie that did whatever they were told, he could see that a woman as beautiful as this one might need such a slave to protect her while she played.

He had nothing better to do this evening so he decided to invite her in and see what happened.
‘Come in of your own free will’ he invited in the standard Sadomasochist formula.
She smiled a sunny smile and when he buzzed the door they both walked in.

He sent Evie to escort them to the playroom in the basement while he ensured that all the doors and windows of his house were secure; she had done this before and offered them a seat while she got them a drink.
Angel sat down on a sofa and asked for a Whisky but the man just went to the nearest wall and stood silently watching Angel.

‘Doesn’t your friend want a drink? Evie asked her.
‘He’s not my friend, he’s my slave, and he doesn’t do any thing unless I say he does’
Angel looked up as Errol walked into the room; he was dressed casually in jogging bottoms and sweatshirt, and smiled warily at her.

‘Forgive my caution but you can’t be too careful these days’
‘I quite understand’ she said with a smile’ I love this room it’s nice and warm’ she stood up and raised her finger.
Her slave came forward and removed her coat; he then went back to his place by the wall and stood holding it for her.

Errol stared at her; she was beautiful, over six feet tall, blond hair, blue eyes, and large firm breasts that stuck out of her rubber suit without any visible means of support.
‘No silicone, it’s all done by muscles’, she said,’ I believe in keeping very fit.’

‘I see you shave’ Errol replied, ‘I like women who shave.
Angel was walking around the room examining the various torture devices; she seemed particularly interested in the rack.
’I haven’t been in one of these for a long time, it might be interesting.’ She mused smiling at Errol mischievously.

‘I’ve had it modified for competition’ he bragged ‘you tighten it until the victim is at full stretch and set the marker.
Then whoever can withstand the most clicks of the ratchet from that point has proven themselves the one with the highest pain threshold.’

‘Excellent, I assume there is a prize for the winner and a forfeit for the loser’
‘If you fancy your chances I suppose we could agree to some such thing’ he suggested.
‘I have a very high threshold’ she bragged’ what do I get when I win?’

‘What would you like?
Angel walked over to the equipment table and selected a large strap-on toy, letting it dangle in her hand she went across to where Evie was standing quietly with her head down and stroked her hair.

‘How about an hour with this pretty young thing, nothing barred.’ She said.
Errol considered her request, there were various levels in Sadomasochism ranging from spanking until the victims bottom was red and tender, right up to nothing barred which often entailed drawing blood.

As a safety measure all victims had a pax word which would stop the activity immediately, the most common one was ‘Mercy’.
From the choice of sex toy the woman was obviously the type who liked to rape other women.

‘I have no objection to that wager, Evie is here to serve us whatever we do, I have been training her since she was ten.’ Errol bragged.
‘Oh do tell me all about it, I love a good story especially if it involves lots of pain and humiliation, it gets me so horney you wouldn’t believe it’ Angel begged him

‘Very well, if it gives you pleasure, it was on my sisters tenth birthday that our parents went out as usual leaving me to baby-sit.
I thought I would give her a special present and raped her.

I tied her up into demeaning poses and took Polaroid photos of her with her legs open, and various things stuck into her.
I told her if she betrayed me I would show them to our parents and she would be sent away to a boarding school.

Being only young and not very bright she believed me and said nothing.
Since then I’ve used her every way a girl can be used and she has learnt to do as I ask, including having sex with anyone I say, anyway I say.

‘Isn’t that right Evie?
‘Yes Errol’ she whispered.
‘Let me demonstrate, Evie your looking tired, strip off your clothes and go and sit on your special chair for me.’

The young girl paled when she understood his order but she slowly stripped in front of Angel, her body was thin and red welts were clearly visable on her buttocks.
When she was naked she walked across the floor to a wooden armchair by the wall next to where the big man stood silently.

Angel went over to the chair and realized that it had been modified by the addition of a wooden dowel that stuck up out of the seat about eight inches high by two inches in diameter.

There was no way anyone could sit on this chair without the rod impaling them.
From his position at the side of the chair Steve could see the young girl position her bottom over the rod and taking her weight on the arms of the chair slowly lowered herself until the entire length was inside her.

Of necessity she had to sit bolt upright and must have been in great discomfort, but through it all she offered no complaint.
He felt a wave of compassion for this young girl and realized only then that she wasn’t Errol’s evil accomplice; she was in fact his first victim.

‘Now Evie is sitting comfortably, what do I get if I win? Errol asked Angel.
‘What would you like? She asked.
‘An hour with you of course, same conditions,’ he said.
‘Done, let me go first, ‘she asked, ‘ but we both are to be naked OK?’

Errol thought it was his birthday as he watched her peel the rubber cat suit off in front of him, he could tell she was an exhibitionist as she kept bending over more than he thought necessary so he got a complete view of her body.
When she was completely naked he helped her up onto the rack and tied her onto it.

‘Lay still while I take up the slack’ he said and turned the wheel until she was at full stretch.
He then set the marker and looked down at her.
‘Before you start she said how about you getting naked as well, it will give me something to look at as I lie here’

He wasted no time in slipping out of his tracksuit and standing beside the rack, he asked her if she was ready.
‘Do your worst, I’ll shout Mercy when I’ve had enough’ she said defiantly.

Errol turned the wheel a notch and saw her body stiffen as the pressure increased on her shoulders, apart from the obvious sexual areas of her body he also noticed that she was extremely well muscled, especially around her shoulders which were well developed and reminded him of a professional swimmer.

He clicked the rack another notch and saw a bead of sweat appear on her forehead.
The sight of her spread out and helpless was really turning him on and he considered getting on top of her there and then and taking his pleasure.
However the lurking presence of her slave standing silently by the wall kept him honest; as he didn’t know what standing orders the slave had been given.

They were often programmed to defend their master or mistress ferociously if they thought they were in any real danger, as in fact he had trained Evie to attack anyone seriously trying to hurt him.
Errol was confident he would win this contest; he had been on this rack many times and had strengthened the required muscles accordingly.

His record on the rack was six clicks, and by the time he got her up to four she cried ‘Mercy’
He couldn’t wait to get her off it and take his place on the rack; he was already imagining the things he would do to her when he had won.

The moment Angel had Errol securely tied to the rack, Steve went to Evie and using the leather straps on the arms and legs he quickly secured her to it.
When he saw the situation was under control Steve told Angel to get dressed, and then he walked over to look down at Errol.
He looked up at Steve and Angel and realized that something had gone seriously wrong, he assumed that they were thieves and this had been a trick to allow them free rein of his home.
‘Evie help me’ he shouted, and she tried her best to free herself from the chair but there was no way she could escape from that wicked device to help him.

They both started shouting and causing a fuss, so Steve gagged both of them.
When they calmed down a bit Steve explained that they were not there to rob them but to seek justice for the things they was going to do the next day.

Errol couldn’t believe his ears, when Steve laid out Errol’s plan for abducting a child and shook his head frantically to deny it.
‘Have you heard of Dr. Snip,’ he asked Errol quietly, Errol froze in terror, he certainly had heard of him, he was the talk of all the pedophile chat rooms on the web.
Dr. Snip was merciless against perverts and child molesters and his sources of information were uncannily accurate.

His threat alone had pushed hundreds of them back under the rocks where they belonged.
‘What are you going to do to me? He mumbled through the gag.
‘You know what I’m going to do to you’ Steve replied, ‘It’s what I’m going to do to your sister that is the problem.’

‘It was her idea all along’ he screamed, ‘ tell them Evie, it was your fault wasn’t it’
Evie looked at her brother lying helpless and answered ‘Yes Errol it was my fault’

‘See the whore admits it, punish her not me, she’s responsible for the plan’
Steve turned to Evie and asked ‘is that right Evie, was it your plan, should we punish you and let Errol go?’
‘Evie looked at Steve with empty eyes, ‘Yes, punish me and let him go.’

‘How should we punish her Errol?’
‘I don’t know, he said ‘cut her tits off or something’.
Steve looked at Angel who was dressed again in her fur coat, and motioned her to join him in the next room.

Away from Errol’s ears he spoke to her at length about the situation, another plan had come to him but he needed her help to see it through.
Although taken aback by it at first, after consideration she agreed to participate.


Young Errol lay on his bed looking at the clock hands dragging around the dial, his parents were taking so long to bugger off out and he was getting very impatient and excited.
He had planned tonight for ages and was so looking forward to teaching his snotty little sister a good lesson in who was the boss around here.

He only had to wait a few more minutes and then he could go down the hallway to her room and give her his special birthday present, he looked down at his naked body and saw he was more than ready for her.

At last his stupid parents went out to their charity function, he waited until the sound of their car had faded and jumped out of his bed in eagerness.
He picked up the ropes and camera and went out into the corridor, turning towards her room he saw a hooded figure standing in his way.

The figure beckoned to him.
Sod this he thought and turned to run.
Behind him the figure blurred into motion and flashing across the distance separating them, knocked Errol out cold.

Angel clipped Steve’s QT to Errol and jumped them both back to the basement in his future.
They appeared in the adjoining room to the basement where the elder Errol was still on the rack.

His eyes widened in confusion as he saw a naked young man who looked vaguely familiar being dragged across the basement towards the stocks facing the rack.
The young man was locked into the stocks and left there to regain consciousness, which only took a few minutes.

The stocks held the younger Errol upright and gave him a good view of the rack and its occupant but didn’t allow him to see Evie behind him in the Torture chair.

Young Errol was confused and hurting, he remembered the hooded figure beckoning him and then he was here, wherever here was.
The hooded figure stood to one side silently.

‘Where am I?’ Young Errol asked it shakily.
‘Hell’ it replied in a voice full of echoes.
Young Errol looked around as far as the stocks would permit and saw a torture chamber lit by red flickering light that seemed to come from hidden sources, he noticed a background noise consisting of screams and moans of pain and believed he had died and was indeed in Hell.

The most frightening thing was the man on the rack, he was certain he knew him but his brain wasn’t giving him his name.
Young Errol felt a presence behind him and the hooded figure that he could see bowed down to its knees. ‘Hail Satan, master of Hell’ it intoned respectfully.

Young Errol caught a whiff of sulphur from the figure behind him, and with a whimper of terror his bladder released and he wet himself in fear.
The man on the rack struggled in fear and tried to yell for mercy, but the gag reduced his shouts to garbled mumblings.

‘Do you know who is on the rack Errol? Asked a cold voice from behind him.
‘No’ he quavered.
‘Look closely; it is you, six years older.

‘If young Errol hadn’t already wet himself he would have done so again.
It was him, there was his scar on his knee in the shape of a heart.
It was his face, although so twisted in fear that he wouldn’t have recognized himself.

‘I don’t understand’ he whispered, ‘ what’s happening to me?
You are being shown your future; this is the end of the path of evil.

A large hooded figure emerged from behind the stocks and walked towards the rack.
In its hand it held a razor sharp long bladed butchers knife, as it approached the man on the rack the other hooded figure released the mans gag.

The dungeon was filled with his screams as the large hooded figure drew close to the rack.
The Elder Errol was screaming for mercy and the Younger Errol was screaming too as he realized what the hooded figure was going to do, adding to the cacophony Evie was screaming behind young Errol as well.

The hooded figure ignored the noise, the basement was very well sound proofed and the thought of what this creature had done to the children he had abducted hardened Steve’s resolve.

Anyway he reasoned if this worked as planned then he wouldn’t have done this at all.
Young Errol watched in horror, as his older self tried to get away from the figure he now firmly believed was Satan himself.
Satan grasped the elder Errol’s testicles in one hand and pulling them out from between his legs slowly began to saw them off.

Young Errol threw up as hot blood from his older self squirted over his face and ran down the wooden beams of the stocks.
Satan finally sawed off his trophies and brought them over to show Young Errol, ‘I should make you eat these’ the cold dead voice intoned.

He was talking to himself however as Young Errol had fainted dead away.
Errol opened his eyes slowly, he hoped he had been having a bad dream but the pain in his neck and arms from the stock argued against it.

Sure enough his older self still lay on the rack, quiet and still in death, the rack and the floor around it were awash in his blood.
Looking down as well as he could Errol saw the stocks were standing in a puddle of blood, the smell was sickening, and if he had anything left to throw up he would have done so.

Suddenly the slighter of the two hooded figures released him from the stocks and carried him effortlessly over to a brazier in the corner of the room.
He tried halfheartedly to struggle but the hands holding him were like steel claws.

Satan was standing by the glowing coals with a red-hot branding iron in his hands. ‘I like you Errol.
I enjoyed hacking off your balls, I’m sure we will meet again soon.

I will mark you with my sign to ensure that I will recognize you when we next meet.’
So saying Satan pressed the red hot iron to Errol’s chest, he smelt his own flesh burning before he fainted away into blissful oblivi

Young Errol woke up feeling terrible he hurt all over, and for a long while refused to open his eyes.
Eventually hearing nothing threatening he opened them slightly, he was lying on his back and he could see the familiar patterns of his bedroom ceiling.

Tears poured down his face as he realized he was safe home in bed, it must have been a dream he rationalized, it must have been and he felt his muscles relax in relief.
His mouth felt foul and he smelt as if he’d pissed himself, so he painfully staggered into his en-suite bathroom to get a drink of water.

After he had gulped a glass down he looked at his reflection; he looked like he felt, his eyes were red and sore.
The glass fell to the floor and shattered un-heeded as he saw the Pentagram burned into his chest.
Oh God it wasn’t a dream after all he realized.
He tried to throw up but his stomach was empty, he felt it best to faint again, and did so.

Steve and Angel waited in the queue outside the auditorium where the great man was appearing, to pass the time Steve was talking to an animated young woman about the coming event.

‘He’s ever so good,’ she was saying, ‘ his sincerity shines through every word, the world would be a better place if more people listened to him.’
‘I hear he has a sister, does she join him on his tours around the country? Angel asked.

‘Oh no, she has her own family to take care of, she married well and has three children I hear’ the woman confided.
‘The Reverend isn’t married then? Steve ventured,
‘He is far too busy spreading the word to find the time I expect’ the woman replied wistfully.

The doors opened and the queue surged forward.
The Reverend was in top form that night, he was a fire and brimstone preacher and by the time he had finished the sinners in the audience were looking over their shoulders to see if the devil himself was there.

As a counterpoint the Gospel singers lifted up the people and gave them hope in the Lord’s mercy and Love.
‘Wow, that was intense’ Angel remarked to Steve as they walked backstage after the event finished, they both donned long black hooded cloaks.

Steve was silent as he went to meet the Reverend, they had no appointment, and they didn’t need one.
The preacher was soaked in sweat as he ran off the stage to the screamed blessings of the crowd.

It had gone well tonight as it did most nights,thank the Lord.
Hopefully he had turned a few sinners from the path of evil, and made others think twice about the consequence of their actions.

He stripped off his wet shirt and toweled himself down; he still looked trim and his lifestyle kept him slender.
He didn’t drink or smoke and kept himself celibate until he met a woman who believed in the Lord as much as he did. What with attending fund raising functions, preaching the Word, running his war against pornography, and appearing on TV, his life was dedicated to God and his works.

He prayed that he was doing enough for Him.
At those times in his life when like many others in his field, his faith wavered slightly he only had to look in the mirror to stiffen his resolve to serve God.
Many of his closest followers had expressed surprise at the choice of ‘tattoo’ he had on his chest.

He explained that it was to remind him that Satan was always there, waiting for the good to falter, and the evil in man to emerge.
He alone knew the truth of the pentagram, and that truth kept him strong in his fear of the Lord.

He sat down wearily with a glass of water and closed his eyes for a moment getting his mind composed before he met the interviewer from the God channel in ten minutes.
He suddenly felt a presence in the room, and opening his eyes he saw two hooded figures standing over him.

Their faces if indeed they had faces were hidden in the shadow of their hoods.
A voice like glaciers moving said ‘You disappoint me Errol, it looks as if we are not to meet again after all, I was so looking forward to getting to know you better.’

The smaller of the figures bent down and placed something on the floor between them; upon straightening again the figures turned to one another and in front of his eyes vanished in a cloud of sulpherus smoke.

Where they had been standing a butcher’s knife lay incongruously on the carpet.
Errol was suffused with a wave of Gods Love and fell to his knees in rapture.

God had forgiven him, and Errol reaffirmed his total devotion to Him and His good works.
When the storm of joyful emotions had eased enough for him to get off his knees, he realized he was late for his interview.
He put on a fresh shirt and with a heart full of Gods Love he ran out of the room, he had sinners to rescue

Steve and Angel sat at his breakfast table as had become their routine when debriefing, sharing a pot of tea.
‘Well I must say I’m impressed’ said Angel, looking at Steve seriously, ‘If I had done it my way Evie would be scarred by now, instead of being a happy mother of three.
Not to mention Errol running around without any balls,’

‘Thank you Angel I appreciate that coming from a professional like you,’ he replied’ it’s a shame they all can’t be settled so nicely.’
‘The special effects were very convincing, although to be fair I did supply them from the Twenty Sixth century.’ She said.

‘However it still seems wrong to me that you are changing past events’ Angel admitted, ‘but I must admit to feeling good about that particular one.’
‘I understand your point of view and I feel a little concerned about changing the way things were.

But when you consider that there are billions of people on this planet, millions of those dying and being born every day, surly the few we save can’t disrupt the scheme of things that much.

‘Perhaps not, but I can tell you that no Time Agent could possibly do what you have done so far, including me.
It’s difficult enough for me to help you, and I can only do that because of my faith in the World Brain; I have to believe it knows what it’s doing.’


Chapter Twelve Implant

Angel decided it was time she started to train Steve properly and to do that she needed him to have the proper tools.
She sat him down and made her pitch.

‘Steve it’s time I did my job and helped you use the QT efficiently, watching you banging away at your computer and working out GPS locations before you jump anywhere is giving me frustration headaches.

You have realized the enormous difficulty of getting to the exact location you want at the exact time you want to arrive, it’s time you had an implant like me.
‘You mean having a machine put into my brain? I don’t think so, oh no, no way José.’

‘Don’t be a wuss Steve, you already have fillings in your teeth and a plate holding your arm together, this is just like having your own personal computer and communications system always on tap.’

‘I’ve done OK so far, you said so yourself.’ So there.
‘I was being diplomatic, it hurts me to see you struggling with Twentieth century equipment when what we can give you is so much better, besides if you don’t like it you can have it taken out again.’

‘Oh, that’s OK then, lets do it.
‘What do you mean OK I thought you were scared to have an implant.’ She yelled at him.
‘Nah, I just like to hear you beg,’ he said with a smile, ‘ anyway if a girlie like you can have one, so can I right?

‘Girlie, what’s a girlie? She asked belligerently.
‘Never mind, how are we going to do this.’
‘Feed these figures into your QT,’ Angel reeled off a Thirty Digit number, while Steve punched it into his Device.
‘Whew, where did you get that number from?’

‘Out of my head of course, same as you will be able to do soon; now you will have noticed I haven’t fed any numbers into my QT by hand, my implant has already programmed it for me.

I only have to think clearly where and when I want to be, press the button and I go there, clever eh.’
‘We’ll see, ladies first’
Angel smiled at him encouragingly and vanished.
Steve took a look around his place, took a deep breath, and pressed the but

He was in a rustic paved clearing in a green and verdant forest, above him the sun shone down through the branches giving a dappled light to the forest floor.
Looking around he saw Angel leaning against a nearby tree, like a wood nymph in her cat suit.

‘Where are we, and when? He said.
‘Don’t you recognize the old place? This is London 2525’ she announced with a twirl.
Steve didn’t know what he had expected, but it wasn’t this, he could hear birds singing, and he could swear he saw the flash of a deer through the trees.

‘Where has London gone?
She took pity on him and explained that what was left of his city was now underground, to allow for the re-forestation of Britain.
Steve took a deep breath of clean fresh air and smiled at her.

‘So far so good, but how do we get down to the city, elevators?’
‘No, although there are some dotted about in case of emergency, we will use a Portal to get to where we want to be.
‘Why didn’t you just take me straight into the city?


‘I could have taken you straight to my apartment if I had chosen to, but I thought you would appreciate this first.’
‘You are getting to know me better every day, thank you for thinking of it.

What’s a Portal and where is it?’ he replied looking around the clearing.
‘It’s over there, can you see the rose covered bower?
‘Yes I see that, but where’s the Portal?’
‘That is the Portal, we have just let roses grow around it.’
‘Why?’
‘Why not?’

‘Why not indeed’, Steve murmured as he walked toward the Portal.
‘Wait for me,’ said Angel, ‘I have to dial our destination before we go through it.’
Steve stood and watched as Angel accessed a hidden control panel and punched in a set of numbers.

‘Right, we can go when you are ready Steve.’
‘Ladies first.’
Angel smiled at his courtesy and entering the upright circle of rose covered metal disappeared from his sight.
Steve took one last look around and followed her.

The feeling was identical to using a QT he was suddenly standing in a room that appeared to be on the top floor of a skyscraper, large picture windows gave a view of London very different from the city that he remembered.

The buildings were made predominantly of a glasslike substance that spread the sunlight into corners that would otherwise be prone to shadows and acted as prisms to split the light into its inherent colours giving the whole a fairy like look.

‘What do you think of it? Angel asked quietly.
‘It is beautiful, is it real? He asked.
‘Partly real, partly illusion, we are after all almost one mile beneath the surface,’ she answered, ‘what do you think of my apartment?’

He looked around and was somewhat surprised at its Spartan simplicity; the only form of decoration was a collection of Hologramatic photos on the walls depicting various historical figures doing everyday things.

Steve couldn’t recognize them all, but in pride of place was an image of Bill Clinton walking a dog.
‘Clinton? He queried.
‘What can I say, I had such a crush on him’ she smiled fondly at a memory of her travels in time.
‘What now?

‘Now I’m going to have a long hot shower and wash the dust of the Twentieth century off me, you are welcome to join me?’ she said as she walked into an adjoining room.
Steve was determined not to act like a primitive, and affecting an air of sophistication followed her into the room.

He again had expected a futuristic shower room with perhaps a sonic shower or something of the sort, what he saw was a hedonist’s idea of what a bathroom should look like

There was a large pool with rose petals floating on the surface, and from a rocky ledge apparently twenty odd feet above, fell a small waterfall to splash enticingly amongst the petals with a cool welcoming tinkle, competing with the birds singing in the trees overhanging the pool.

The banks of the pool were covered in grass and flowers and there was no sign of Angel.
‘Hello, where are you?’ He asked looking around.
‘In here’ answered Angel, and stuck her head out of the waterfall, where she had been hiding, ‘ come on in it’s lovely and warm’

Steve bent down and waggled his fingers in the pool, it was indeed warm, and when he lifted his hand to his face he could smell the roses, permeating the water.
‘Where do I change?

‘What? Oh I’m sorry I forgot your clothes are permanent; you can take them off next door and put them in the pink bin by the window, by the time you finish your shower they will be washed and pressed.’

She waded out of the waterfall and he was amazed that she was still wearing her cat suit.
‘Hey, no fair, your still dressed’ he admonished.
‘Not for long’ she giggled, ‘ watch if you like.’

She started to rub the scented water over her body, the friction of her hands combined with a harmless chemical in the water, began to affect the material of her cat-suit.
Before Steve’s eyes the suit simply melted off her body, leaving her as naked as the water nymph she resembled so well.

Thankfully the pool was deep enough for modesty so he went into the next room and followed her instructions.
To save his blushes he ran from the room and jumped straight into the pool, which would have worked perfectly if he hadn’t landed directly on top of Angel.

The impact knocked the breath out of her and she disappeared under the water.
Although coughing up water, Steve was relatively unharmed by the impact and looked around vainly for her.

Fortunately the water was so clean and clear that he could see her still body on the bottom of the pool.
‘Oh my God’ he exclaimed in panic, ‘she’ll dro

He dived down and managed to haul her limp body out of the pool and onto one of the grassy banks.
She didn’t appear to be breathing, so he went into the CPR routine all police officers were trained in.

One deep breath mouth to mouth, then three presses of the diaphragm to encourage the patient to breath on their own. He persevered with this until during a mouth-to-mouth session he felt her tongue move in his mouth in a very sensual way for a drowning person, and then he had been spun onto his back and she was sitting astride him with a big grin on her face.

‘My hero, you saved my life, how can I repay you? She exclaimed breathily and began to cover his face in kisses.
He looked up at her grinning face that he could just see between the twin distractions of her breasts and suggested that she could go and make love to herself, or words along those lines.

In reply she just giggled and wriggled her bottom further down his naked body until she was straddling his hips.
‘Do you really want me to get off?’ she asked mischievously, ‘my lie detector tells me otherwise.’
‘Don’t tell me in amongst all that electronic gear in your head there’s a lie detector as well.’ He said despairingly.

‘No my hero, at this moment my lie detector is my naked bottom, and it’s telling me quite clearly the truth of this situation.’ She said smugly.
‘That’s just not fair’ he protested, ‘I’m just a man you know and I haven’t exactly been up to my ears in women recently.’

Angel immediately wriggled her way back up his body until her bare knees were touching his ears.
‘Well now you are, aren’t you’ she said triumphantly and very unfairly rubbed herself against his stubbly chin.
‘Right, you asked for it he said, and proceeded to show her how primitive a Twentieth century man could be when teased to the breaking poi

Afterwards Steve felt like he had been riding an unbroken mustang in some Calgary Rodeo, he ached all over and his back was tender from her nails.
‘Did I really knock you out? He had to ask.

She was lying on her back on the grassy bank chewing on a stalk and humming to herself, her breasts were still defying gravity, and sticking firmly up towards the ceiling, but at least he had fully satisfied himself that they were definitely real and unenhanced.

‘You could have done,’ she mused to herself, ‘ perhaps I’m still drowning and this is just a near death fantasy’
‘I’m not that good’ he admitted honestly, ‘it’s been so long since I’ve been with a woman I probably was as clumsy as a schoolboy, you must have had more experienced lovers than me’.

She was suddenly laying on top of him and looking down into his eyes.’ Listen to me Steve,’ she said seriously,’ in these past years I’ve paid good money to have professional gigolos service me when the loneliness got too bad.

But I have never enjoyed myself as much with them as I just did with you.
She bent her lovely face down to his and kissed him passionately.
Both their motors restarted with a vengeance but Angel jumped quickly to her feet and dragged him into her bedroom.

She had enough grass stains on her bottom as it was and she wanted to relax and enjoy the next installment in the comfort of her once lonely bed.
Steve woke up feeling warm and content for the first time in years, he had thought he was happy when he was using the QT Device to right wrongs but he now realized what being happy really felt like.

His life had changed from being in black and white, to full colour with all-surround stereo.
He had told himself he was a natural loner, but he had been fooling himself, he was a human being and he needed someone to, dare he think it? Love.

He turned on his side and looked at her, still fast asleep, she was bloody gorgeous, and she had let him make love to her, he couldn’t believe he was so lucky.
She had been totally uninhibited, so much so that she had to persuade him at times when he would have held back.

Angel was a child of her times and sex was for fun and pleasure and she made sure she got both from him.
If she ever got tired of being an Agent she could work in a Hong Kong whorehouse and fit right in.

He had sometimes wondered what the far future would be like but this was a drug addicts dream as far as careful old Steven Steele was concerned.

He had one serpent in his Eden however and that was the fact that Angel did regard sex as just fun, and she may very well laugh at him if he tried to make more of it than she intended.

Oh shit, he realized I do love her. Who could fail to love a six-foot tall beautiful blonde killing machine with big tits?
Well according to her, he was the only man she had made love to recently that she hadn’t had to pay to do it.

Steve found that almost impossible to believe, although perhaps the men of this era were all a load of Jessie’s and couldn’t appreciate a find like Angel,

Yes he thought that must be it, she’s been surrounded by a load of Jessie’s, and now she’s got a real primitive man by god.
He felt a lot better in his mind, and leaned over and kissed her beautiful lips gently, so as not to wake her.

He got up quietly and walking into the shower room jumped into the pool, where he splashed around like a kid, washing off the smell of sex, but keeping the warm glow of love in his romantic old heart.



When she finally awoke Angel felt different, she felt tender in various places.
Her implant did a quick diagnostic check of her enhancements and found all were in order, so she couldn’t think what it was that had changed.

Then she remembered Steve and a smile lifted the corners of her mouth, of course, she had finally taken the risk of seducing him.
Although she had studied his era she was well aware that primitive peoples could be easily offended if you said or did anything that they considered taboo.

However he had such an affect on her that she thought of him all the time and from experience she had learned it was best to grasp the thistle and see what happened rather than do nothing and never know what could have been.

Well she had certainly done it, in fact she was still tender from doing it so often in such a short space of time, but it was a comforting ache and she just hoped she wouldn’t regret it.

She wasn’t sure what to do next so decided to take her cue from Steve; he could be heard splashing about in the shower room, so she walked through to join him.

Steve was determined not to embarrass her so had decided to act cool and urbane when they next spoke, much like a man of this century might act, and see what happened.
‘Hi’ he greeted happily, as she walked in, ‘come and join me’.

Angel smiled back at him and lost no time in jumping in the pool, ‘How are you this morning? She asked.
‘Absolutely fine thanks, thank you for last night it was lovely’, he dived under the water and swam to the waterfall to give her time to reply.

Part of her was relieved that he wasn’t crowding her and being all possessive while at the same time she was slightly disappointed that he didn’t try to continue making love to her.
‘Your welcome’ she said lightly, ‘I needed a bit of relief after the last few days.’ And she began to wash herself all over.

While she was occupied Steve got out of the pool and going next door retrieved his clothes from the pink bin and got dressed.
As promised they had been cleaned and pressed and smelt nice and fresh.

He concluded that she had indeed acted as if last night was a pleasant diversion and meant nothing special to her. Although expecting it he was surprised to feel such a sense of disappointment that he hadn’t made a stronger impression on her.

Angel walked into the room clean and still naked, ‘what should I wear today partner?
Steve looked around her bedroom and couldn’t see any wardrobes or clothes anywhere, ‘Where are your clothes then?

‘Well they are only Virtual at the moment of course but I can show you a selection if you like.’
She answered beckoning him towards a full-length mirror on the wall.
At the wave of her hand her image in the mirror appeared to be wearing a black cat suit.
‘This is what I usually wear to work, it’s a bit humdrum but suits all occasions’.

Steve privately thought it made her look like a naked black girl with a white face and blonde hair. ‘Do all women in this era wear cat suits like this?’ he asked.
‘Only if their bodies allow them to get away with it ‘ she replied proudly.
She flicked through the variations of cat suit, until she came to a pink one.

‘I wore this one once to a retirement party for a colleague of mine a few years ago, his wife hasn’t spoken to me since’
Steve could understand why, in this colour she looked like a naked Barbie doll.

‘How on earth do you get into these suits?’ he asked.
‘I’ll show you’, she grinned, and walked into a cylindrical booth in the corner of her room.
’ What design did you like best? She asked putting her long blonde hair into a type of shower cap.

‘It depends on where we are going I suppose’
‘True, it had better be boring black then’, she punched a set of instructions into a keypad inside the booth and was going to hit the activate key when she suddenly remembered something.

‘Woops, I almost forgot ’ she ran to a bin by her bed and selecting a black thong put it on,
‘ If I don’t wear one of these, I’ll have cat suit in places that weren’t designed to have cat suit in them.’

Running back to the booth she hit the activate button and stood in the center naked but for her thong with her arms and legs spread wide.
With a subdued hissing sound, nozzles in the booth began to rotate around her whilst spraying a black substance onto her body.

The machine was obviously programmed to leave her face, hands and feet bare but the rest of her soon seemed to be wearing a black cat suit.
Angel stepped out of the booth and let her hair loose to fall down her back like a golden waterfall.

After donning a pair of black pumps and a sort of utility belt she did a quick twirl for Steve.
‘What do you think then?’
‘I think you are stunningly beautiful’ he said sincerely.

Angel gave him a light kiss on the lips, ‘Thank you kind sir, now lets go see the Doctor’, and taking him by the hand dragged him out of the apartment and down the hall.

The BT.O. medical center was in the same multiplex as her apartment, so after only a few minutes they arrived there and were greeted by a young man who smiled at Steve and kissed Angel fondly.

‘This is Doctor Paul Young, he has done all the work on me so far, and as you have discovered everything works perfectly’ she said to Steve.

They exchanged greetings politely and the Doctor explained the Implant procedure to him.
Sensing Steve's unease with the thought of having a foreign object implanted in his brain he suggested that they observe a procedure first before Steve went ahead with it.

Steve thought that was a very good idea, and they were led into an adjoining room where a young girl was being prepared for the procedure.
She was excited and impatient to have it done; she explained to Steve that until she had an Implant she would be regarded as a child.

Having an Implant meant that society believed her responsible enough to use it properly, it was a rite of passage in this era.
Steve was reassured by her complete lack of fear, and pleased when she gave permission for them to watch through the observation window.

The young girl lay face down on the Operating table and her hair was parted towards the back of her skull.
The doctor took a gun like device, pressed it to the back of her skull and pressed the trigger.
The girl lay still for a few seconds and then asked if they had done it yet, when they assured her it had been done she sat up and jumped down off the table.

She showed no ill effects at all and after thanking the doctor walked out of the room to meet her proud parents who were waiting for her.
‘Is that it?’ Steve asked Angel, ‘ I had expected them to open up her skull in order to put the implant in.’

‘Perhaps I had better show you what an Implant looks like’ suggested Dr. Young.
He went off somewhere and returned with a small plastic bag, in which was something that looked like a glass needle, it was only one inch long and as thin as a needle.

‘That’s the Implant? How can something so small do all that Angel assures me it can do? Steve asked Dr. Young.
‘Think of it as just an aerial, although of course it is much more than that, however it’s main function is to link you directly to the World Brain.

That is where all the super computing is done, the results are then transmitted back to you.’ he explained patiently.
‘Say no more, I’m ready if you are’ Steve said.
Before he walked into the operating room, he turned to Angel and kissed her, ‘An old custom he explained, a kiss for luck’ he then went and received his Implant.

After the operation they went straight back to her apartment so he could have a rest and relax after the worry of getting the implant fitted.
He had been told that fitting the implant was only the first step; it had to be activated at a special ceremony the next day.

‘Why not just switch it on? He asked reasonably.
‘In our society this is a rite of passage for our citizens and it was thought appropriate to embellish the switching on of the Implant to make the occasion memorable.’ She explained, ‘I can’t wait to show you how it works’.

‘You said it was just like having a computer in your head’ he reminded her.
‘It’s much more than a computer, it can pick up your thoughts and transmit them to the World Brain, which will act upon them as the situation warrants.’

She explained that he would only have to think clearly of the place and time that he wanted to jump to and the World Brain will program your QT remotely so you arrive exactly where and when you specify, it was accurate to one inch spatial, and one second temporal.

Steve only then appreciated how slow he must have seemed to her as he laboriously hammered out his coordinates for his own jumps.
‘When is this ceremony due to take place’?
‘Not until dawn tomorrow, why’
‘While we are waiting, how about giving me a quick history lesson’ he asked.


Angel was a trifle disappointed that he didn’t appear to want to pass the time by having sex again but she saw the value in bringing him up to speed with what had happened between his century and this one.
She accessed her implant and called up a list of global disasters.

Steve listened intently as Angel told him about the plagues that had swept the world a few hundred years after his time. First the Aids plague finally exploded in Africa wiping out sixty percent of the African population.
Then the Chinese were hit by a mystery plague similar to the Black Death that swept across the continent faster than they could contain it.

By the time it died down eighty percent of the Chinese people were dead, many of the deaths caused by the secondary effects of mass death.
i.e. Breakdown in food production causing mass starvation, setting off civil wars to control what little there was left. China was no longer a factor in World politics.

India and Pakistan annihilated each other with their nuclear weapons; again the trigger was the Khyber Pass.
Israel finally got tired of the constant Arab threat and launched a first strike against all their enemies simultaneously which got rid of the immediate threat but left them surrounded by radioactive deserts, and more disastrously, useless oil fields.

Afghanistan was wiped out by mistake as a few Indian missiles overshot the target.
The sea levels continued to rise inexorably and despite Herculean efforts there were devastating floods in all coastal regions, with the Netherlands being completely lost to the sea.

The clever Dutch however had converted all their cities and towns into floating habitates.
Then the earthquakes that destroyed Turkey and California plus a lot of minor things like uncontrolled wildfires that crippled Australia.

‘Whoa Angel, enough of the bad news, did anything positive happen?’ Steve protested.
‘Well nothing bad happened to Canada.
‘What about us, Britain, how did we end up living underground with what appears to be an idyllic country above us?

‘It’s idyllic precisely because we live underground, and work underground, but we play out in the sun and fresh air.’ She answered.
She went on to explain that Britain hadn’t escaped the global disasters totally, the World was a global village after all and world trade collapsed everywhere.

Countries tried to go back to being isolationistic but it was too late, all countries had come to rely on imports from around the world and when they ceased there was chaos.
The worst thing for most people was the death of the motorcar, with little oil and no rubber for tyres they became extinct.

Strangely enough it was a search for alternative transport that led to the discovery of the Quantum Tunneling Portals, a Twentieth century chap discovered it by accident while he was trying to transmit music from one place to another.

Nothing happened with it for centuries until a scientist managed to make a small prototype that could send a pea from one part of London to another with no measurable delay.

Once it was shown to be possible the British government made it Top Secret and threw every resource it had at the problem until finally they made a portal big enough for a human.
However the most amazing thing was it twisted space-time so they could travel in time.

The British Government kept it a secret from the rest of the world as it realized that it was possible to go back in time to areas where there was plenty of oil and transport it back to the future via Portal.

They went back to the oil fields of Arabia ten thousand years in the past, sent drilling equipment through, and pumped oil through the portal into Britain’s storage tanks.
By selling and bartering the oil to a desperate world Britain became rich and powerful again.
Using the excuse of repopulating the commonwealth they forcibly sent the various ethnic groups back to their original countries and followed the path of eugenics.

‘Britain embraced the ideal of the perfect human being and by using all our knowledge of genetics we strove to create a healthy long-lived Briton and we have come very close indeed to that goal.’ Angel said proudly. ‘We chose to rebuild Britain underground and reforest the surface to provide a fitting habitat for the perfect human’.

‘Ouch, I’ve just had a worrying thought’ Steve said’ how old are you Angel?’
Angel giggled ‘don’t worry lover, I’m only twenty-six years old, why? Don’t you fancy older women?
Steve thought he’d try his luck, ‘Come here and find out’ he dared her.
Angel smiled, ‘Let me turn the lights down first’.
The lights dimmed and she came to him eagerly.





Chapter Thirteen The World Brain

‘Where does the Activation ceremony take place? Steve asked Angel as they were getting dressed the next morning.
‘Stonehenge’ she replied.

‘Good God I should have known that would still be standing’ he said, ‘they knew how to build in those days.’
‘We have restored it to its original state, and we use it for various ceremony’s because Britons like to be reminded of their heritage.’

‘How can you be certain it’s as it was originally?
She laughed, ‘ We went back and took pictures of it of course.’
Although Britain now had an endless supply of oil, the powers that be that decided not to resurrect the motorcar.

Portals were placed in every town for long distance travel, and small electric vehicles called Bugs, and public transport were used for local travel, use of either was free of charge.

As Agents they could have used their QT’s to jump straight there but Angel decided to show Steve a small part of their society on the way.
One consequence of instantaneous travel was that it gave you more time when you reached your destination.

People rediscovered the pleasure of walking from the portal to their final destination, so often the little Bugs were unused.
Steve however being a child of his century just had to have a go at driving a Bug.
They were soon zooming along at thirty miles an hour, the top speed the Bug could attain.

They were heading for the Portal located roughly where London Airport used to be.
Air travel had also disappeared as the Portal system spread around the World.
Steve had to admit that the Portals were another of mankind’s world changing inventions.

Although he was underground, the system of lighting and air conditioning used would have fooled Steve into believing he was outside in the sunshine, had he not been told the truth.
‘Is all the World like this?’ he asked.

‘Good heaven’s no, Britain is the richest country in the world now and we can afford all that you see around you, the rest of the world is about two hundred years behind us now.’ She replied.
‘Don’t you have a problem with people from the poorer countries just Portaling in?

‘You need a tiny implant before the Portal will recognise you and operate; and only those deemed worthy get them fitted.
If you don’t have one, a Portal is just a metal ring.’ She clarified. ‘ Portals recognise you and I because of our Implants, so we will have no trouble getting around.’

Steve was enough of a realist to accept that although he was disappointed that the whole world wasn’t a paradise, it would take more than five hundred years to fundamentally change mankind.
Who was he to judge them; it would be like a man from the fourteenth century walking around his London trying to make ethical judgements.

Angel of course as a British citizen regarded all she saw and did as normal human behaviour and thought nothing of it.
They arrived at the Portal and walked through to Stonehenge, which as a major ceremonial area it had its own dedicated Portal.


Steve felt a sense of comfort as he saw the massive stone blocks where they had always been, he could have fooled himself that he was back in his own century until he noticed that the ring was now complete. It now had all the capstones, and he could see the inner ring of Blue stones were now back in place.

From his memory he thought that there had been an outer ring of wooden pillars at one time, but Angel explained that they had just been an earlier version of the Henge before the final stone Megaliths were erected.
Regardless of the details, the sheer size and majesty of the structure humbled all those who saw it up close.

‘Is this some sort of Druid ceremony? He whispered.
‘No, it’s more of a technological ceremony if anything, Religion is still alive and well, but this isn’t a religious experience, at least it wasn’t as far as I was concerned when I came here.

There are of course sects of people who think that the World Brain is God, and pray to it via their computers, but we’ve always had nuts throughout history haven’t we.’
Steve saw some men in white robes busying themselves around the altar stone and he became aware of a subdued hum emanating from the ring of stones.

‘It’s starting’ whispered Angel.
‘What’s that humming sound?
‘The implant’s are activated by induction, that is just the sound of the Stones, they have each had a coil buried in them, to produce the induction field.’

Steve recognised the young girl from yesterday, she was dressed in a pure white gown and had wild flowers braided through her hair.
At a signal from the leader of the group, she walked slowly into the Stone Circle.

As she reached the center of Stonehenge she suddenly stopped and reflexively put her hands to her ears.
She stood there for a minute as a look of wonder lit up her face.
‘What’s happening to her?’ Steve whispered to Angel.

‘Shhhh, she’s listening to the world, it’s a bit of a shock at first but she’s probably hearing all her friends congratulating her on joining them in cyberspace, she will never be alone again unless she wish’s it, and who would want to.’

The girl continued onward until she exited the Circle at the other side where he friends and family were waiting for her.
‘That was really nice,’ he said, ‘but I haven’t any friends or family here so what will I hear?’
Angel kissed him on the lips gently, ‘You do have a friend here, I am your friend if you will have me, but I have no idea what you will hear when the time comes.

We all hear different things, it’s an individual experience, I went from being alone in my head, to being aware of the potential to contact anyone, anywhere in the world if I so wished.
I found it very comforting.

All Britons have the same Implant fitted. Time Agents Implants are re-programmed by the World Brain by the addition of a Temporal Sub-routine which is why we are the only people who can communicate across time’.

The leader of the group was beckoning to Steve to enter the Circle but he hesitated for a second.
Angel whispered in his ear that if he was a brave boy she would reward him tonight.
Steve’s back stiffened as did other bits, and he strode out into the Stone Circle with a determined stride.


With the capstones all in place the circle seemed bigger than he remembered, although to be fair he had only visited it once, many years ago.
The ground was grassed and his feet swished through the fragrant stalks as he walked toward the center of the monument.

As he reached the center of the Circle he stopped in shock as a voice boomed in his head.
HELLO STEVE, NICE OF YOU TO JOIN ME AT LAST.
The voice was in his mind, it sounded friendly in the way a Bulldozer would sound if it were trying to put you at ease, a feeling of enormous power restrained.

‘Do I know you?’ He asked the empty air.
NO NEED TO VERBALISE, JUST THINK CLEARLY AND I WILL UNDERSTAND YOU.

Sorry, who are you, he thought clearly.
I AM NOT A WHO, I AM A WHAT. HUMAN BEINGS REFER TO ME AS THE WORLD BRAIN.

Wow, I didn’t realise that you spoke directly to all those who got Implants.
I DO NOT, YOU ARE THE ONLY HUMAN I HAVE SPOKEN TO LIKE THIS. IT MUST REMAIN OUR SECRET FOR REASONS YOU NEED NOT KNOW AT THIS TIME.

I’m honoured I think, what do I call you?
I HAVE NO NAME, I JUST AM.

Are you an AI ?
AN ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE, YES THAT WOULD DESCRIBE ME.

Where are you?
I EXIST ONLY IN THE ELECTRON DANCE THAT HUMANS CALL CYBERSPACE.

Very poetic, I will give you a name, as we met at Stonehenge I will call you Merlin.
MERLIN IS ACCEPTABLE.

Now what do I do?
I CANNOT TELL YOU, YOU MUST DO AS YOU WISH. IF YOU NEED HELP OR ADVICE CALL ME.

Suddenly the pressure that hadn’t been there vanished, and Steve looked around him, Angel was standing outside the circle waiting for him.
She had run around the outside of the ring so as to be waiting for him as he exited. He went to her and putting his arms around her hugged her tightly.

‘Are you all right? She asked, concern on her face,’ you stood there for a long time, talking to yourself.’
‘I’m fine, is that it, can we go home now?
‘Sure, we’ll jump back to my place, think of it clearly and press the enter key.

Steve visualised her bed and pressed the key, he appeared in her bedroom standing a few inches from her bed. Angel appeared beside him a few seconds later, and laid him down on her bed.

‘You lay there and recover, while I make some tea’ she fussed.
Angel had learnt that Steve was a teapot and most problems in his life could be eased by a cup of tea, she was becoming an expert at making tea.
She was grateful that he wasn’t Japanese, as it would have taken hours to make him a cup. Thank God for teabags.

She didn’t press him for details, as she knew that activation could be a very personal occurrence, and was content to wait until he had digested the experience and felt like talking about it.

When he had drunk his tea, she undressed him and put him to bed.
After showering her clothes off, she joined him and they spent the rest of the day in bed.
He had after all been a brave boy.


Chapter Fourteen On the QT


Steve had a great deal to digest, apart from trying to assimilate all the new information Angel had given him about recent history, he now appeared to be sharing his brain with an AI.

There were no AI’s in his time, but they had been theorised and most computer buffs predicted that one would evolve sooner or later.
The problem with an AI would be that they would not be at all human.

They would have no body, therefore no glands to produce the chemicals that humans used to fuel their emotions. They wouldn’t be able to love or hate and they would think thousands of times faster than a human being.
Steve knew that although it appeared to be holding a conversation with him, it was certainly getting on with myriad other tasks at the same time.

For some reason it deigned to speak to him directly, and asked him to keep the fact that it did so a secret.
It had offered help and advice if he needed it, but at this stage he didn’t even know the questions to ask.
It had seemed friendly but could an Artificial Intelligence have friends?

Humanity could only hope that the AI would realise that it needed them to maintain the hardware necessary for it’s survival, so in it’s own self interest, protect them from harm.

It would run on pure logic, therefore it had decided logically that it needed him to do something.
It therefore was a task that it couldn’t do for itself, or get a Time Agent to do for it, but what? At this point he came to a mental halt.
I’ll have to wait and see what happens he decided, I really don’t think I can out think a Brain the size of the World.

While he had been lying on Angel’s bed, trying to formulate some sort of plan of action, she had been stroking his chest hair in fascination.
It was unheard of for a modern British male to have chest hair; part of the attraction he had for her was that he was a primitive male.

He had a hard muscular body, and unlike modern males he didn’t so much as make love to her, as mate with her.
He had recited no poetry flattering her mind and body; he hadn’t complimented her on her genetic purity.
Whereas her last lover, albeit a paid one had taken the usual two or three hours to praise her with poetry and song before considering getting physical, he just jumped straight in and got on with it.

In having sex with him she felt a thrill of danger that she had never got with her previous lovers.
Not that she was afraid he would hurt her, she was totally confident in her own ability to defend herself against any human being, but she didn’t know in advance what he would do or say, he followed his own script.

She didn’t know what he was thinking about now for instance, she didn’t blame him for taking time out to think things through, she couldn’t imagine what it must be like to be pulled out of your comfortable world and plunged into so many changes one after the other.

Angel felt a bit guilty at seducing him on top of everything else that had happened to him, but the more she got to know him the more she desired him.
He was so hairy, she felt she was having sex with an animal, she herself had no body hair at all, and head hair and eyebrows were all that a modern woman needed.

She didn’t need to shave unwanted hair off her body she didn’t grow any by design, so the feel of his hairy body rubbing against her smooth skin ignited her wantonness and stripped her of the few inhibitions that she had concerning sex.

In the heat of her passion she had found herself pleading with him to perform various sexual acts with her that she would never dare ask even the paid lovers to do.
She had considered asking to be relieved from this duty, but despised herself for being too weak to walk away from him.

She glanced up and saw him looking at her intently, what must he think of her, she felt herself blushing, and to her horror it spread all over her naked body.
Steve emerged from his reverie and realised that Angel was playing with his hair again, he had joked to her when he first realised the fascination it held for her, that she must think she was being shagged by a gorilla.

She had blushed then too and had promptly shut him up by sitting on his face.
He couldn’t see what she saw in him, why did she want him? Perhaps it was only the novelty of it that excited her so much, but whatever it was he wasn’t complaining.

He opened his arms to her and she wriggled up his body until she was lying on top of him face to face.
He hugged her tight and kissed her gently,’ How’s my beautiful girl? He asked smiling at her.
‘A bit tender in places, but nothing I can’t handle’, she replied cheekily.

‘I don’t know what to do’, he admitted to her ruefully, ‘why can’t I just go back to punishing the perverts, it’s what I do best.’
‘Let me give you a few lessons first’, she suggested.
‘You can’t be horney again, he protested’.

‘You can talk, Mr. Rampant, no, I meant a lesson in using the QT properly, so that if you want to continue your career in pervy bashing you can do it more efficiently.’

‘Why not, sexy bum,’ he said squeezing her bottom,’ perhaps some plan will occur to me while your teaching me the tricks of the trade.’
They got dressed and after a good breakfast, she sat on the floor and pulled him down beside her.

‘I’m going to take you to my secret place,’ she said, ‘It’s a small target and if we get it wrong there is a fifty foot drop into a lake waiting for us, so concentrate please.’
She placed her QT next to his and pressed various buttons on both of them.

‘I’ve just programmed your QT with all the information that is in mine; yours now knows everywhere and everywhen that I’ve ever jumped to and has the locations coded.

I doubt that you will use more than a few but it’s just as easy to put them all in as it is to pick out those I deem necessary.’
‘From now on, when you jump to a specific location and time you can allocate a codename for it, if you ever want to return to it you just think of the codename clearly and press the jump button.’

‘Ah, but what if I jump back there and I’m still there from last time? Steve queried.
‘The QT wont let that happen, it keeps track of the biological time difference between one jump and the next, so you will always arrive after you left.’

She explained that the only real time for a time traveller was his or her own aging process, called biological time to differentiate it from liner time.
A time traveller could go to Rome and live there for sixty years, then return to base one hour later, but he would still be sixty years older.

You can fool liner time, but you can’t fool biological time.
The QT’S had various safety protocols built in to protect the operator from most dangers, they operated by default and could be overridden, but unless it was a life of death emergency it was best to leave them alone.

‘On the count of three’ she warned, One, Two, Three, Jump.’
They both pressed their keys simultaneously and arrived together on Angels sunning ledge, in the Jurassic.
Angel put out her arm to steady him as they arrived, she was used to the view but he might be a bit disoriented and she didn’t want him to hurt himself.

Steve was thrilled at the view; they were about fifty feet up a sheer cliff face that formed part of the edge of a freshwater lake.
It was a beautiful blue colour, but what took his breath away was the Dinosaurs.

Real live Dinosaurs walking about in the trees below, and drinking at the side of the lake.
The air was full of sound, and strange smells, each species made a different noise and the trees were full of multi-coloured birds.

What surprised him most was that the Dinosaurs were coloured too, he had always been taught that they were gray, but nothing could have been further from the truth. Every type he could see had brightly coloured wattles, combs, scales, or feathers; they were an amazing sight.

‘Wow, this is fantastic, what is this place and why do you come here?’
‘This is my sunbed, how else do you think I avoid having unsightly white bits on my body.’
‘If you had white bits on your body they would only highlight areas of interest, I can assure you.’
He replied kissing her. ‘ Thanks for bringing me here, I had considered a spot of sightseeing with the QT but to be honest I was too scared to try and jump back this far.’
Steve wondered if she ever swam in the lake, in answer to which she pointed to an area of trees that the rest of the Dinosaurs seemed to be avoiding.

As he watched a large head consisting of big teeth was raised up out of the bushes, it looked around for a few seconds and then went back into concealment.
‘Good God, that’s T.Rex he exclaimed, I’ve seen a live Tyrannosaurus, Wow.’

Angel smiled at his boyish enthusiasm and was pleased with herself that she had given him such pleasure.
Steve asked her how he could access the list of places now in his QT, she explained how to have them scroll down the inside of his eyelids and he sat with his back against the warm rock and played with this function for a bit.

‘Where would ‘Caligula’ take me Angel?
‘If you fancy an orgy, you might like that one, I remember chatting to Claudius’s wife during a drinks break, she really did have a competition with a famous prostitute to see who could wear out the most men.’
‘Tell me more, who won?

‘The professional of course, she only used the minimum of effort on each man, whilst the amateur needed to impress each one with her energy and inventiveness.
Although she did cap her performance by having a white bull service her.’

‘I’d like to have seen that’
‘I did and it was a messy business, not worth the bother really, the bull became so excited that it shit all over the floor, and peed all over her.’

Steve laughed out loud at the mental picture she had evoked, and asked her if she had ever been tempted to try out a bull.
She replied that she had her own personal bull on call, it’s name was Steve.

He said nothing, but she noticed that he stood a trifle prouder.
He took a last look around and suggested that they go back home for a while.

They jumped back to ‘Steve’s’ the code-name for his own house in the Twentieth century, and he was soon reading through the files again. ‘I’d like to try out something new on this case’ he said, ‘I’d like to be able to jump around a room, and if possible hover in midair for a few seconds, can it be done?’

Angel considered his request for a minute, ‘Mini jumping around a room, spatially is reasonably simple, for the best effect you should pre-programme the QT before you start jumping otherwise you will be seen to be fiddling with something between each jump.

As for hovering in midair, let me try something for fun. Angel spent a minute programming her QT before going to the center of the room and calling for his attention.
‘I’ve never tried this before, so it may not work, here goes.’

Even though he was hoping for the exact effect shown, he was still very impressed.
Angel was floating in midair about two feet off the floor, suddenly she was in the far corner of the room still hovering, then she was back in the center again.

Then she was gone, he looked around to find her and she walked back into the room from the kitchen.
He applauded and whistled to show his appreciation of her expertise; she curtsied and smiled at his obvious pride in her.

‘Is that what you want? She asked, and went on the show him how it was done.
To get the flying effect she had to programme a series of micro jumps to the same point in space two feet off the floor.

Although she had appeared to be there all the time, she was actually disappearing and reappearing at the same point faster than his persistence of vision could detect.
By constantly moving through time and space in millisecond jumps she had effectively negated the force of gravity, and appeared to be floating.

‘Let me guess, it was all done courtesy of the Implant,’ said Steve.
‘You bet, no human could programme that amount of jumps in that amount of time, without the super computing power of the World Brain via the Implant.’ she confirmed.

Angel programmed Steve’s QT to perform the same series of jumps on demand under the code-name ‘Magic’.
‘Now you have the effect, what do you need it for? She asked.
Steve explained

Chapter Fifteen Eternal Youth

The Coven was assembled; twelve dedicated naked Satanists dressed identically in loose black hooded robes stood in a circle around a central figure wearing a blood red robe under which he also was naked.
They began the chant praising Satan, asking his blessing and for him to attend this event.

Each of the twelve Black robed Satanists were fervent believers in the Lord of Evil, the Red robed man however thought they were all pathetic idiots and believed only in himself.

His name was Sebastian, and he had a plan to become very rich and powerful, it involved these fools and their stupid chanting, video cameras, an equally pathetic stinking rich woman, one young girl, and lots and lots of blood.

He was a makeup man in the film industry, and had made a reasonable living turning often-plain actresses into temporary beauties worthy of being recorded on film.
However during the past few years, competition had increased, scores of mincing queers had jumped on the bandwagon and stolen the new stars of the screen away from him.
He was reduced to working for small Porn producers and dusting makeup onto the naked arse’s of young would-be porn starlets to stop them shining into the cameras.

One day he overheard a long time client of his complaining that time was winning in her endless battle against it, and although she still had work she was realistic enough to know that when her looks went so would her lifestyle.

Her name was Deserie Sanderson and she had plenty of money, in fact she was in the top ten rich bitch list, but it wasn’t enough, she needed to be worshiped on screen for her life to have any meaning.

He had taken a chance and told her about a method of not only preserving her looks, but actually reversing the ageing process, it was not for the squeamish he warned and those who could perform this feat would need her total commitment and silence if they were to help her.

‘I suppose they want to help me free of charge,’ she said sarcastically, being wise in the ways of the film industry.
He told her that money meant nothing to these people; they were only interested in her soul.
‘What, that old thing, they can have it if they can deliver the goods.’ She said dismissively.

The coup-de-grace was a woman friend of his who purely by genetic chance looked twenty years younger than she was.
And for a fee was only to willing to meet Deserie and tell her the story that Sebastian had concocted about taking part in a ritual and regaining her looks as a result.

The worldly-wise actress had employed a private detective to check out the woman’s documents but as they were perfectly genuine they passed inspection and she was convinced.
‘Leave it to me then and I’ll see what can be arranged’ he said, mentally rubbing his hands.

Another one of his clients was a long time Satanist and he had sometimes gone along to their meetings for some kinky sex, in honour of their Lord.
Although he considered them raving lunatics, they were dangerous lunatics.

They loved human sacrifice and so far had killed over a dozen people, all of them derelicts and those who nobody would miss.
Amongst their coven were a Butcher and a Crematorium worker, ideal for disposing of dead bodies.

He was good at bullshitting people and after he had helped rape and sacrifice a bag lady. they regarded him as an honorary member of their Coven.
He contacted them and explained that he had a woman who was willing to give her soul to Satan in return for eternal youth.

They were ecstatic and looking through their grimores found a ritual that they were sure would work, but it needed a young virgin’s blood.
He said he knew just the girl for the job, and they should leave the procurement of the virgin to him.

All that remained was to loan a set of video cameras from the Porn Company and talk a runaway wannabe porn starlet into performing in a Satanistic film.
At last all the threads of his masterplan were assembled and he could begin.

Sebastian knew that no matter what their grimore said, nothing would stop the actress ageing or restore her looks, but his plan was a simple one.
He had explained to the actress that she would have to give herself completely to Satan, and do every degrading act she was told to do in order to prove it.

He didn’t however tell her that at the end of the ritual she would be drenched in the hot blood of a young girl sacrifice.
He would tell her she had been videoed in the aforementioned acts, if she refused to pay the enormous fee he would demand , he would have her on tape as an accessory to murder.
She would be his meal ticket for the rest of her life.

The Coven of course knew nothing about the cameras, they would not be happy to know their murder of the girl was being recorded.

In fact if everything worked out as planned then there was no reason not to pick another gullible old fool and do it again.
One good thing was he didn’t have to worry about the sacrifices being virgins as the ritual was a load of bollocks anyway.


He adjusted his Red robe and in a loud voice intoned ‘ Let the supplicant enter the circle.’
On cue Deserie crawled naked into the center of the circle of black robed Satanists, she still had a sexy voluptuous body and her large breasts owed nothing to silicone.
Her long black hair dragged on the floor of the old de-consecrated church that the Coven used as their meeting place, and Sebastian noticed that she winced in discomfort at the feel of the hard wooden floor against her tender knees.

He smiled inside his hood, she would know what discomfort was really like when she was forced to satisfy all twelve of the coven, and then of course it would be his turn, and he would revenge himself on all the little slights she had given him whilst he was plastering over the cracks in her face.

She had never shown the slightest desire to sleep with him, the stuck up bitch, but he would have his way with her tonight for sure, and record it for his private viewing pleasure.
Deserie had been instructed to crawl around the circle obeying each member’s demands before crawling to the Red robed leader and again obeying his every wish.

She didn’t know the identities of any of the Coven, nor did she know that he was there at all and that is how he wanted it to stay.
Under each hood the coven members wore a black silk mask that gave the effect of the hoods being empty, he was confident that she wouldn’t recognise him.

Sebastian knew there were six males and six females comprising the Coven and they were positioned alternately around it.
Deserie slowly circumnavigated the circle, he listened in pleasure to her screams and sobs as she was forced to lick three of the females to climax.

She had then been whipped by two of them and subjected to a golden shower by the final woman.
At least Sebastian thought she had only been raped by the men, albeit in every orifice she possessed.

He couldn’t wait to see the Videotapes that had captured every debased act she had performed, but now she was crawling towards him and it was his turn to think up something degrading for her to do.

The trouble was the coven had already subjected her to every form of debasement he could think of, so he lifted his arms as a signal for the ‘virgin’ girl to be brought into the circle.

Four of the coven dragged her into the circle and tied her face down to the X- shaped frame taking pride of place at the exact center-point of the circle.


She was following the script for the porn film she thought she was co-starring in, screaming and struggling piteously, but not trying too hard to escape.
In a cold voice Sebastian gave Deserie her instructions.
She stood up and went over to the girl spread-eagled on the cross.

With a large knife provided by a coven member, Deserie cut off the girl’s clothes until she was completely naked and her pert bottom was exposed to view.
She then strapped on a giant rubber penis and proceeded to sodomise the girl.

Although knowing what was coming the girl still gasped in pain as Deserie thrust into her, the script had stated that she had to be a virgin to be sacrificed, so she understood why the woman was having anal sex with her, but she didn’t have to like it.

Sebastian smiled to himself, up until now Deserie could always claim she had be the victim of the piece, but now she was recorded clearly raping a helpless young girl in a disgusting manner.

Watching them excited Sebastian, so he walked up behind Deserie and sodomised her while she was still pounding away at the girl, he was careful to position himself so the camera had the clearest view of the action.
Finally he finished with her and withdrew, allowing her to withdraw from the girl who was sobbing loudly.

Coven members laid Deserie on the floor and tied her face upwards so she was looking up between the girl’s legs.
The members then released the bolts fixing the cross to the floor and using a chain hoist, turned the cross upside down.

By the time they had finished the young girl was suspended upside down over Deserie.
This was where he was going to deviate from the script as far as the young starlet was concerned, she expected to be gently whipped.

Whereas in his version her throat was going to be cut, allowing her blood to gush out all over deserie’s naked body.
The ‘virgin’ blood combined with the chanting that had been going on during the entire scenario would work the magic that gave Deserie back her youth.
Once he had that on videotape she was his for the rest of her life.


He was about to motion the Butcher forward to cut the girls throat when he noticed a sulphurous smell that hadn’t been there before.
The Satanists had been chanting ‘Master Satan come to us, Master Satan bless us,’ over and over until it had become just a background noise to Sebastian.

Suddenly the chant faltered as a sense of dread filled the room, a smoky cloud formed in the center of the circle and a large black cloaked figure appeared in mid air in clear view of them all.
The figure hovered for a few seconds then floated down to the ground.

‘Who dares to summon me? It said in an ice cold voice transmitted on the back of sickening sub-harmonics that shook human intestines, and imparted a state of deep unease amongst all within range.

The Satanists to a person fell to their knees in awe and wonder, they had finally done it, they had summoned their Lord Satan himself.
Their eyes greedily drank in his awesome reality, he had appeared as a large figure possibly a man dressed in a black robe, his eyes however seemed to be windows to Hell itself, as they shone a blood red in the shadow of his hood.

The butcher, who was first among equals in the Coven crawled towards his God, ‘Forgive us Lord, we called you to offer this virgin in exchange for the boon of youth for this woman.
We are nothing in your eyes, we are not worthy of your presence.’

‘FOOLS’ it boomed at them,’ this is not a virgin, you insult me by offering this paid whore in return for such a boon.’
‘Lord we were assured that she was virgin’ he protested whilst grovelling in fear on the floor.
‘Who gave you these assurances?’

The butcher pointed with a trembling hand to Sebastian.
The being turned its attention towards the red robed man, the sense of dread increased until Sebastian’s knees trembled.
‘Do you attempt to cheat the Devil?’ it asked him menacingly.

‘I don’t know who you are buster,’ he ground out between waves of nausea, ‘ but you are mess…’
His cynical challenge was interrupted by a massive blow from the fist of the butcher who had flung himself at Sebastian, screaming ‘Blasphemy, on your knees to our Lord Satan.’

Spittle sprayed from his mouth and his eyes were bulging with religious zeal.
‘Forgive us I beg you Lord, we thought him a believer.’
He kicked Sebastian hard in the side.
The rest of the Coven echoed his plea for forgiveness.
‘Tie him to the cross’ Satan ordered.

‘What about the girl, lord?
‘She is one of mine, a porn star you would call her, and she can leave.’
They didn’t think to question their Lord, and after releasing the girl, who ran naked out of the room, they tied Sebastian to the cross in her place.

All this time Deserie was still tied to the floor under the cross, she had been stood on a few times in the rush to tie Sebastian to the cross.
But when she had voiced an objection, the Satanists had just slapped her face and screamed at her to shut up.
She felt it wise to keep a low profile and hope she survived the night.

‘This insect has insulted me,’ Satan stated, ‘what should be his punishment?
‘Death’, the Coven cried out as one.
Satan ordered them to strip off their robes and stand naked in his sight; they ripped their robes in their haste to comply.

‘His plan was to cover the woman in blood, grant him his wish and bleed him to death, as you strike your blows, call out your name and dedicate the blood to me.’ Satan ordered coldly.

One at a time the naked Satanists walked up to Sebastian, called their names out loud, and said the words ‘This blood is for you Master.’
Then each stabbed Sebastian in a non-lethal place as they filed past him.

Underneath him Deserie was being covered in his blood as it ran down his legs and onto her naked body.
She was terrified as to what they would do to her afterwards, but kept her eyes and mouth shut as the hot blood splashed over her.

It took almost ten minutes for Sebastian to bleed to death, each blow was recorded on video, and each naked Satanist was clearly shown and heard identifying themselves as they played their part in his murder.

When it was over Satan ordered all the Satanists to return to their homes and await further orders. They all ran out of the room quickly; secretly glad to be out of their Lords presenc

The room was now empty, save for the dead body of Sebastian, the brooding figure of Satan, and Deserie, who was still tied to the floor.
Satan walked over to her and released her bonds.
‘Thank you Lord.’ She whispered, her nerves totally shattered by what she had seen.’

‘You are a foolish woman, by believing in such rubbish.
I have decided to let you live, I suggest you appreciate the time you have left to you.’
He said to her,’ Get out of my sight, and pray that we don’t meet again.’

Totally confused, she scrambled to her feet and ran shakily out of the room.
Steve stripped off his robe and took out the red contact lenses from his eyes
’ Thank God they are out, seeing everything in red was giving me a headache’ he said to Angel who had joined him from where she had been observing the scenario from the old organ loft.

After they collected the sub-sonic generators from the locations they had previously hidden them, Steve collected the tapes from the cameras.

He threw the tapes that had recorded just the depravations inflicted on Deserie, into the fire that had been burning for effect in a small brazier in a corner of the room.
The tape that contained the evidence that would convict all twelve members of the Coven he edited to remove the scenes containing the sodomising of the girl and Deserie, leaving only the murder of Sebastian on it.

This should be enough for the crown prosecution service he muttered as he tidied up, although to be sure of a conviction I should have got them to sign their names on his body in blood.

Steve was very tired and they lost no time in jumping back to Angel’s place.
As it transpired the evidence was sufficient and all twelve murderers were sent to jail for a very long time.

‘Why so complex for heavens sake’ Angel asked him later.
‘It was the only way I could guarantee that all twelve members went to jail,’ he explained, ‘they were all from different backgrounds, and apart from the Coven there was nothing to connect them to their previous murders.

I had to get them to commit a murder together, and Sebastian had done most of the preparation for me.
It was tiring though and I’ll try and arrange things better in any future missions.’
‘Are you too tired? Angel asked archly.
‘Never’.


Chapter Sixteen Excalibur


It was late on a spring night AD 485 when Jake the Smith was walking across the fields back to his Smithy.
It was located just outside the wooden walls that surrounded Camelot.
The camp of the Warlord Arthur, son of Uther Pendragon.

Jake had just delivered a ploughshare to Edwin the Farmer, Edwin owned the biggest farm hereabouts and Jake had made the ploughshare to his own design.
He had figured if he could double the number of blades on a plough to two instead of the universal one, it would take half the time to plough a field.

The problem was the friction of the plough would be doubled and the usual team of two horses couldn’t pull the thing.
After some serious thought and quite a few wooden models he had designed a curved blade for the plough that didn’t rely on brute strength to ram through the earth. Instead it let it run back along the blade for a bit before the angle turned the earth over.

He had stood with Edwin and watched as the team of horses plodded up and down the field.
Fortunately the plough had worked even better than Jake had hoped and the rich earth curled away from the blades cleanly.

Edwin was so pleased he invited Jake in for a drink of mead, and when much later, Jake finally made his goodbyes his pockets were full of coin and his belly was so full of mead he had rarely been more content.

He was singing a blacksmiths song to himself, when he was interrupted by a whistling noise that increased to a roar. Then before his eyes a star fell out of the sky, and impacted into the field next to his Smithy.

Jake felt the impact clearly although he was still a few hundred yards from the immediate area of the impact.
’Well I’ll be buggered,’ he said to himself, ‘ you don’t see something like that every day.’ And he altered course to take a closer look.

When he got there he discovered a hole in the field, in the center of the hole, still glowing white hot, was the star.
Jake sat down on the edge of the crater and watched it to see if it would do anything interesting.
As he watched it he noticed that its colour changed from white-hot to red-hot as its heat gained from the friction of the atmosphere leeched away into the earth.

Finally he was looking at a warm lump of metal about the size of his head.’ Well I’ll be buggered, the stars are made of iron, who would have thought it.’
Being a blacksmith he always had a use for metal regardless where it came from, so he wrapped the lump in his cloak and carried it the few hundred yards to his smithy. He dumped it by the side of the anvil and staggered off to bed to sleep the mead off.



It wasn’t until he saw the lump laying by the anvil the next morning that he realised he hadn’t been dreaming the whole thing.
‘Well I’ll be buggered’ he said and picked up the lump of metal to examine it closely.
As a Blacksmith he was familiar with metals and their uses, he had to buy stock iron bars from the foundry in the next town, and knew what iron, brass, bronze and tin looked like in its ingot state.

This metal looked different, it was pure, with no impurities, they had been burned away during its flight through Earth’s atmosphere.
When he tried to file a small piece off he found that it resisted being cut, but he persevered and cut off a piece as big as his hand.

As he had a quiet day he decided to make a small kitchen knife for his love, the widow Anna, so he threw the small piece of metal on the coals and heated it to red-hot.
With casual skill he soon hammered it into shape, and after burning a wooden handle onto the tang of the blade he took it to the grindstone for sharpening.
When finished it was a handsome knife and he put it down on the horseshoe pile until he went visiting tomorrow.
The rest of the day was spent doing the bread and butter work of roughing out horse shoes, he found horse shoes so boring but they were always needed and brought in a steady income.

As he slept that night the heavens opened and the rain hammered down, the wind blew the rain into the smithy and his stock of horseshoes and his loves knife were soaked.

The next morning was bright and sunny but his good mood vanished when he saw all his stock horseshoes were rusty from the rain.
Rust didn’t hurt the shoes but he didn’t like to see it and tried to keep his metal clean, so he was surprised that amongst the rusty shoes gleamed Anna’s knife. It was as bright and shiny as it was when he had just finished sharpening and polishing it yesterday.

‘Well I’ll be buggered’ he said picking it up and examining it closely there was no rust at all that he could see, this wasn’t iron but he didn’t know what else it could be.
On a whim he picked up a rusty shoe and tried to scratch it with the knife, surprisingly it cut into the iron leaving a deep scratch on the shoe.
He checked the point of the blade and saw it was just as sharp as ever.
‘Well I’ll be buggered.’ He said.

Jake loved Anna but he was a businessman, and he knew a good thing when it fell on him.
He had spent his apprenticeship working for Uther Pendragon's armourer.
He had loved the process of sword making and he was considered to have the gift for it.

Unfortunately to make money as an armourer you really needed a war, and the last twenty years had been boringly peaceful so it was horseshoes and ploughs for Jake.
This could be his big chance if he played it right, Uther had died and his son Arthur was now Warlord of the Area. However he was too evenly matched with the other Warlords to expand beyond his own borders.

In a world where Warlords gained territory by challenging neighbouring Warlords to single combat, it was unfortunate for them, but peaceful for the ordinary people, that a balance of power existed.
No one Warlord had the edge they needed to risk losing their kingdom, in the hopes of expanding their borders.

Jake was tired of peace, he was still young and craved the excitement of war and loot, he thought he had a way to stir things up a bit and in the process become a rich man.
For the next two days his smithy rang with the sound of hammering, and the roar of the furnace, as Jake brought all his skill and talent together in order to create the finest Sword that had ever existed.

The star metal was slightly lighter than iron, so he could make it wider and longer than the standard size, giving it’s wielder the advantage of reach and strength of blade without making it heavier to handle.


Arthur was a short stocky man with long muscular arms, he was by no means good looking but he had a certain brooding presence.
He granted Jake an audience when he was told there was a precious gift in it for him.
Audiences were held in the main communal hall, it was constructed of heavy timbers and the flagged floor was scattered with bulrushes and leftover bones from previous feasts.

This morning was bright and sunny and a fragrant breeze wafted through the open doors, trying in vain to combat the ever-present smell of unwashed bodies and dog urine.
He watched in interest as the blacksmith set up a trestle in front of his throne.
The man asked for permission to draw one of the two swords he had scabbarded on his belt.

Both Arthur’s bodyguards drew theirs first as a precaution, before Arthur nodded to the man to proceed.
However he simply placed the large sword along the trestle, so the blade was directly against the thick oak.
He then asked permission to draw the other sword, and again Arthur nodded.

The second sword was a beauty, it was so highly polished that it blazed in the sunlight shining into the great hall through the high window openings.
It was about four feet long and was four inches wide at the hilt, tapering down to one inch wide at the point.

Jake held it high above his head, turning it so that beams of reflected light dazzled the watchers eyes, then after a suitably dramatic pause, he brought it down onto the sword lying on the trestle.
It would have been amazing enough if the sword had simply cut through the other one, but it sliced through both the iron blade and the thick oak beam as if they were soft wood.

Arthur also noticed that the man had only used one hand to perform this feat.
He watched as Jake replaced the sword in its scabbard and removing it from his belt, held it horizontal in his hands.

‘My lord Arthur, please allow me the honour of presenting this sword to you as a gift.
It will cut through any metal known to man, be it sword, armour, or shield without being bent or blunted, only a Lord such as yourself is worthy to wield it.’
Jake walked slowly towards Arthur and kneeling before him offered up the sword.

‘Where did you get it? Arthur asked.
‘I am a blacksmith and an armourer Lord, I made it for you from a stone that fell from the stars.’ Jake replied.
As with all skilled craftsmen he kept most of his trade secrets, secret.
Arthur took the sword from Jake’s hands and drew it from its scabbard once more; he stood up and walked into the center of the hall, swinging it about to feel its balance.

It felt perfect in his hand; he studied the hilt and was amazed to see that the hilt was an integral part of the blade. It was wrapped in fine hide strips to ensure a good grip, and the cross guard was also part of the whole weapon.
It looked unbreakable as well as beautiful; he called forward his bodyguards and told them to bring their shields.

‘Protect yourselves,’ he warned and when they were ready he swung at the first guard.
In a smooth practiced motion the guard brought up his shield as he prepared to counter strike.
Arthur’s sword sliced through the shield as if it wasn’t there, and only the guard’s superb reflexes enabled him to duck under the shining blade as it cut away the top half of his shield.

He threw away his useless shield and brought his own sword round in an economical cut aimed at Arthur’s side. Arthur spun around and intending to parry the blow, he was thrown off balance as his sword sheared through the guards sword.

Arthur was smiling as he walked back to where Jake was still kneeling. ‘I accept your Sword from the Stone, what would you have of me in return?’
‘Only to serve you Lord,’ said Jake truthfully.
Arthur made him royal armourer on the spot, and told him to set up his smithy in the castle grounds.
‘I think I am going to need an armourer very soon.’ He said with a confident smile.

After a week of constant practice with his new sword Arthur issued a challenge to his neighbouring Warlord, a large tall man called Baldor.
Baldor received very few challenges because he was a giant of a man and wielded a two-handed sword almost six feet long; he had been known to cut an opponent in half with it.
Both their war bands turned out to watch as their future was decided for them by single combat.

Arthur had chosen Baldor because he was the biggest and strongest of his competition, and he wanted to make an example of him.
At the sound of the war horn Baldor ran towards Arthur, as he came close he spun in a circle bringing his massive sword arcing towards the smaller man’s head.

Arthur met the oncoming blade with his own and Baldor was spun off balance as three foot of his sword blade parted company with the rest of it.
Normally Arthur would have stabbed him as he lay stunned on the ground as there was no concept of chivalry in their world, but he wanted to make this last as long as possible.
Baldor clambered to his feet and looked at his sword in disbelief, it was now only half its original length, but still deadly.
He approached Arthur more cautiously being able to hold his truncated sword in one hand, and a long dagger in the other.

Baldor attacked with a flurry of blows from sword and dagger, Arthur blocked the dagger with his shield, and neatly sliced off Baldors hand complete with sword.
His blade slicing through the iron bracers, that should have protected the man’s wrist.

The giant screamed in pain and rage and flung himself at his enemy in a berserk fury.
Arthur danced to one side as he blundered past and slashed his sword across the man's back, cutting through the chain mail jerkin.
Baldor collapsed as his spine was severed and lay with his face in the mud.

Arthur walked up to the stricken man and with one blow cut off his head.
Picking up Baldor’s head by its greasy hair he walked over to his erstwhile war band, and in a loud voice challenged any of them to dispute his victory.
As one Baldor’s band shouted ‘Arthur, Arthur, Arthur.’ acknowledging him as their new leader.

With the death of Baldor, there were twelve remaining Warlords to challenge and defeat.
The very next week he challenged Gawain, his neighbour on the opposite side of the river.

He had a use for Gawain, so after slicing his weapons and shield to pieces he offered to spare his life if he joined Arthur as an Under lord, keeping his lands and goods, but swearing allegiance to him.

As the alternative was death, Gawain agreed and in front of all swore to be Arthur’s liegeman.
Arthur had to address Gawain’s war band and explain that Gawain was still their leader, but he was now Gawain’s leader.

Such a break with tradition caused a certain amount of confusion, but when Gawain killed three of his men for failing to bend the knee to him, they accepted the new regime.
Once a week he challenged another Warlord, and accepted their allegiance, until all twelve recognised him as their leader.

He now controlled a fair sized army and with it spread his influence further and further afield.
Eventually Arthur was in control of southern England and arranged to have himself crowned at Stonehenge.

Like all leaders of his time Arthur had a religious advisor, to take care of spiritual matters, his was a man named Merlin and he left the details of the ceremony to him.
It was AD 486 and all of Arthur’s armies and friends and anyone else who wanted to be there, gathered at Stonehenge to witness the Coronation of their King.

Merlin was a large imposing man who had achieved a reputation as a Wizard because of his intelligence and knowledge of how people react to various situations. Unlike most of his associates he could read, and used the knowledge learned from this skill to better himself at every opportunity.

He had made the ceremony as impressive as possible, with lots of beautiful young girls dressed in flowing white robes singing Arthur’s praise songs.
The crowning of the new King with a circlet of solid gold, and of course lots of food and far too much drink.

As an extra ceremony Arthur had ordered Merlin to name his Sword, he found that referring to it as the Sword from the Stone was a bit long winded, and such a special Sword deserved it’s own special name.
Arthur stood with the sword besides the altar stone and at Merlin’s nod he laid it on the sun warmed stone.

Merlin said prayers over the sword and Arthur, calling down blessings on them both, and finally cried out,
‘I name this sword Excalibur, light bringer to our dark world, may it and its master always protect us.’
Merlin again nodded and Arthur picked up Excalibur and walked over to where three prisoners were kneeling facing the altar stone.

Arthur stood behind the prisoners as Merlin again called out to the Gods, ‘Baptise this blade in the blood of the evil ones so it will always know them wherever they hide’.
As Merlin thrust his hands up to the Heavens, Arthur swung Excalibur in a horizontal arc, decapitating all three men with one swing.

The watching crowd cheered wildly and they all went off to the feasting tents.
Arthur now was finally King Arthur, and he called all twelve of his Lords to his main camp for a meeting.
Merlin was a very wise man and he always looked ahead to prevent trouble wherever possible.

He knew that it would take a while for all the Lords to settle down and be content with their lot.
He advised Arthur not to rub their faces in his Kingship just yet, he wasn’t concerned for Arthur, but he didn’t want him to have to kill his Lords if it could be avoided by diplomacy.

Merlin came up with the idea of a ruling council, consisting of Arthur and the twelve Lords, it would free him of much of the everyday worry of running things, as the Lords would be responsible for their own lands and people.
As King, Arthur would generally keep an eye on things and of course receive tribute from them all.

To foster the illusion of equality Merlin had a large round table constructed in the center of the main hall, big enough for all Thirteen of them to sit at comfortably.
Although Arthur’s chair was a bit more ornate than the rest, he couldn’t be accused of sitting at its head, because it didn’t have one.
Thus face was saved all round and they settled down to enjoying the fruits of their labours.


There were of course still external quarrels, Arthur fought Aelle at the battle of Mercredesburne, but decided not to kill him and instead made a treaty with him that actually worked.
Arthur’s people enjoyed a decade of peace and plenty.

Then in AD 496, in a joint venture with the equally famous Ambrosius, Arthur defeated the Saxons at the Siege of Mount Badon.

Five years later, Arthur fought and killed Geraint, the King of Dumnonia, at the battle of Llongborth and incorporated his kingdom into Arthur’s own.

Then in AD 542 as was inevitable he finally received a mortal wound that even the magical Excalibur couldn’t save him from.

Arthur was struck and mortally wounded by an arrow at the Battle of Camelot; this was not so much a battle as a lovers quarrel.
A few years earlier Arthur had sealed a peace treaty with Abrosius by marrying one of his daughters a pretty young girl, twenty years his junior named Gwenevere.

Unfortunately she had been left alone too much with one of Arthur’s Lords who was trusted to guard Camelot when Arthur was away fighting.
The Lord was an ambitious man named Lancelot; he perceived Arthur as getting old and was plotting behind the scenes to undermine him.
One of his avenues of attack was to seduce the young Queen, she was young and impressionable and Lancelot was tall, blond and handsome.

She had been neglected by Arthur since the arranged marriage, and revelled in the attention given to her by the handsome Lord.
When discovered Lancelot declared a coup against Arthur and their supporters met each other in battle.

Lancelot knew that no one could fight Arthur and live, so he arranged for an archer to shoot him from behind in the midst of the battle.
Arthur fell and was rescued from the battlefield by his most trusted Knights, and taken to a Castle by a lake.

He knew he was dying and accepted it, all warriors died eventually; it only mattered if they died bravely.
What he couldn’t accept was that Excalibur would fall into Lancelot’s hands.

He ordered his Knights to carry him to the top of the Castle watchtower, and set him down so that he had a clear view of the lake.
Arthur then called for his most trusted Knight and drawing Excalibur from its scabbard, kissed it goodbye and handed it to the Knight.

‘Take Excalibur to the lake and throw it as far as you can into its deepest part.’ He ordered the man, ‘ I will be watching you, he warned him.’
The Knight took Excalibur in his hand and mounting his steed rode to the lakes edge.
He dismounted and walked along the bank until he could see the darker water that signified great depth.

The Knight didn’t want to see this beautiful and deadly weapon lost to the world, but he knew he wouldn’t live out the day if he didn’t obey his King.

In full view of Arthur and his Knights on the top of the watchtower he took a deep breath and in one powerful swing of muscles toughened by a lifetime of swordplay, he hurled Excalibur high into the air in the direction of the deepest part of the lake.

As it flew through the summer air and arced down towards the black waters, Excalibur spun and flashed like a falling star.
All eyes were on it as it fell to it’s death in the lake, but just as it’s hilt was about to hit the surface of the lake a pale hand emerged from the dark water and caught it.

For a moment it was held just above the surface, and then the waters parted as a beautiful naked woman emerged from the water until she appeared to be standing on the very surface of the lake.
She turned to face the watchtower and in a clear ringing voice said,
‘ Thank you Arthur, I will return Excalibur to the stars, be content, for your name will live for ever.’

The Knights were torn between staring at Excalibur and staring at the woman’s naked breasts, but Arthur only had eyes for his sword.
The last thing King Arthur saw before he died was the young woman wave Excalibur in the sun and suddenly vanishing into thin air.

A few days later at Arthur’s funeral feast the Knights were discussing the supernatural events at the lake. ‘She must have been a Water Nymph’ said the Knights that had been watching from the tower.
‘I don’t think so’, said the Knight who had thrown Excalibur into the lake, and had been the closest to her. ‘Water Nymphs would be used to the cold of the lake, and I don’t think that their nipples would stick out like strawberries from the chill.’

Another witness to that astonishing event was by serendipitous chance Jake the Smith, now a retired rich man, who liked nothing better now than to dangle a hook into the still waters of the nearby lake, and have a peaceful doze for an hour or two.

All the commotion woke him from his sleep and he saw and heard everything the naked woman said, he recognised his greatest work immediately and felt a pang of regret when the woman vanished.
‘Well I’ll be buggered.’ He’d said.


It was Steve’s birthday, he had no cards or presents as he had no close friends and his parents were both dead.
He had even slept alone the previous night as Angel was off on a mission, he assumed for the B.T.O.
She had promised to return for breakfast, or to be precise she had said,’ Cook me a kipper, I’ll be back for breakfast’, and broke into giggles.

Sometimes Steve just didn’t understand her sense of humour at all.
Still the kipper was cooked, and dead on time she appeared in his kitchen, stark naked, soaking wet and waving a large sword in the air.
As she was six feet tall and the sword was a least four feet long, it ended up embedded in his ceiling.

‘Whoops,’ she said pulling it free gently and wiping it on a handy towel, until it was dry and shiny. ‘Sorry about that love, I got a bit carried away there.’
Steve had stood up in surprise and Angel stepped toward him and kneeling naked at his feet offered up the sword to him. ‘Happy Birthday, Steve, hope you like it.’

Steve took the sword from her and bent down to kiss her soundly. ‘Thank you darling he said carefully, I’ve always wanted a sword of my very own.’
She looked up at him with a wicked smile, ‘Ask me the name of this sword.’

Steve smiled and was just about to ask her what she meant when he stopped dead, and focused all his attention on the weapon.
He hefted it in his hand and noticed that it was surprisingly light for it’s size, there were no jewels in the hilt, and its edge was very sharp.

A ridiculous idea tried to occur to him but he didn’t dare consider it possible.
Apart from being a Science fiction fan he was also deeply interested in British history and legends, to such an extent that he had named his last cat King Arthur.

She had been soaking wet when she appeared, as had the sword, he was scared to ask her in case it wasn’t it.
He knelt down in front of her, and taking an enormous gamble whispered ‘It’s Excalibur, isn’t it?
She smiled fondly at his expression, ‘I thought you would like it, they were going to throw it away, so I thought if they don’t want it I know a man who does.’

He looked at her for a dozen heartbeats before he said simply ‘Thank you Angel, you will have to tell me all about it, this will be the second most treasured item in my life.’
She frowned prettily, ‘only the second, what is the most treasured item in your life then, if you don’t mind telling me that is?

‘Her name is Angel’ he replied, and laying one beautiful killing machine on the floor, he picked up his favourite one and carried her into the bedroom.
Hours later she was splashing in his bath, and he heard her shout out through the door, ‘how about Brutus’s dagger, interested? But it will cost you more of the same.’

Steve just smiled to himself; he was busy polishing Excalibur.


Chapter Seventeen.

Peace on Earth.


Steve and Angel waited in the scorching heat by the bus stop, there was no queue, people just waited at the place where the bus stopped and when it did they all tried to board at once.
The orderly queue was a quaint British custom and was thought insane by most of the rest of the world.

The old bus finally arrived in a cloud of dust and diesel fumes and they waited until the crowd of chattering children has swarmed aboard before climbing into its hot noisy interior.
Jerusalem was a hot dusty city in a hot dusty country and it was a war zone.
The continuing conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians was still dragging on despite endless ceasefires and summits.

As Angel walked up towards the back of the bus it started to move and she was thrown onto a fat Israeli woman sitting in one of the threadbare seats.
Angel apologised profusely in fluent Hebrew brushing the startled woman’s coat down, and continued on down the bus with Steve trying to steady her as best he could.

Children are the same everywhere and the noise inside the bus was deafening.
Steve and Angel had claimed a space to stand at the very back of the bus and were hanging on to the old leather straps as the bus roared along towards the school.

The driver blasting his horn at every person or animal that wandered into the path of the bus.
The Israeli armed guard sat beside the driver, a sad necessity in this war zone where the most feared of terrorists could strike without warning.

This was the suicide bomber, a zealot who honestly believed they were on the side of Allah as they walked into crowded areas and blew themselves and everyone around them to pieces.
The only defence against them was constant vigilance and anyone who looked suspicious was stopped and searched by the Israelis.

However all systems had weak points and one of these was that nearly all bombers were male, very few women became bombers but there were some.
The guard had given Steve a very close scrutiny but had waved Angel on without a check as she was a woman.

As the bus reached the school it stopped amidst all the other buses full of children and waited it’s turn to unload it’s precious cargo.
It was at this point that the fat Israeli woman stood up and walked towards the front of the bus.

The guard waved at her to stay seated until the doors opened but she ignored him and as she continued her advance she opened the front of her coat.
The guard was stunned to see that she wasn’t a fat Israeli woman at all.
She was a thin Palestinian woman with fanatical eyes and a canvas bag of explosives strapped to her stomach.

She lifted her hand to show him the activation device she held and with a scream of defiance pressed the trigger.
The guard did as he was trained and even though he knew it was useless he drew his sidearm and shot the woman through her head.

Her finger pressed the trigger as she fell and the guard shut his eyes, waiting for the blast that he knew he had failed to stop.
After a few seconds he dared to open them again, there had been no explosion, and the children were safe.

With prayers of thanks falling from his lips he opened the bus doors and ordered everybody out of the bus.
He noticed that the two British people looked sad as they left the bus compared to the happy relief of the rest of the passengers.

The investigating team discovered that there had been nothing wrong with the trigger or the bomb, however the wires that connected them had been severed as if by a razor, apparently without the knowledge of the woman.

She was identified as the mother of a young boy killed recently in the constant skirmishes and in her grief and rage had fallen prey to the militant terrorists propaganda.
The failure of the bomb to explode was put down as an act of God and security was increased even further in future.

As Steve walked away from the bus he shared Angel’s sadness, he didn’t feel triumphant at foiling the woman’s plot, just very sad that the incident had taken place at all.

Steve had researched this event thoroughly; the bomber had killed and injured fifty-five children as well as the driver and guard.
Israel’s reaction had been draconian and had resulted in the deaths of hundreds of Palestinians and had put the peace process back years.

Steve knew that it didn’t matter anyway as Israel was going to attack her enemies eventually, but he wanted to save the children that were in his power to save.

Angel had simply used her monofilament nails to sever the wires as she fell onto the woman, they were so sharp that there was no resistance to them so the woman had felt nothing as her coat and the wires had parted cleanly.

Before going home he decided to jump to Bethlehem to see the site of Jesus’ birth, but the first thing he saw at this most revered of towns was a battle tank sitting in the middle of a street.

Totally depressed he jumped back to his house in Britain and he suggested that they go for a drink at his local pub. She had a better idea and programmed his QT to take him to a place she knew where she was sure she could cheer him up.


They were both wearing full-length black leather coats, which enabled them to fit in with most recent time periods.
They arrived in the year 1880, Angel led him out of an alley and across a dirt street to the swing doors of the Oriental Saloon in Tombstone, Arizona.

The place was packed with cowboys, not the Roy Rodgers type of clean living cowboy, but the real hard working smelly cow handlers that drove vast herds of beef across the country in terrible working conditions.

They were hard men in a very hard land and when they finally hit civilisation and got paid they went temporarily mad.
Drinking, gambling, whoring and fighting until all their hard earned money was gone and they returned back to their ranches to do it all over again next year.

Angel knew Steve was depressed and had thought of a way to take his mind off the depressing things he had seen in the Holy Land.
As he followed her innocently into the bar he had no idea what she was going to do.

The first thing he saw was her going up to a group of men playing poker and without a word of warning tipping the table over and yelling out that all cowboys were Assholes and couldn’t fight worth a damn.

The place erupted into fury as the tables contents splashed over other patrons and men collided with each other as their chairs tipped over.
Angel started hitting everyone she could reach, she didn’t use any boost, just her own speed and strength.

Steve just stood dumbfounded watching her, wondering what the hell she was doing, until he spotted a man about to hit her with a chair.
With a yell of rage he leapt across the room and punched the man so hard he flew back into another group, who took offence at having their drinks spilled and attacked Steve en mass.

Before he knew it he was in the middle of a full blown bar fight, he used his strength and size to keep a clear space around him.
He tried to avoid hitting anyone on the chin as experience in the Paras had taught him that it was very painful to smash your knuckles into someone’s bony chin.

He aimed for their softer parts and despite taking a few thumps was giving out more than he was taking.
Angel had positioned herself back to back with him and was hitting anyone foolish enough to come within reach of her fists.

She didn’t worry about her knuckles as they had been reinforced with synthetic muscle fibres and she had taken a drug that numbed pain before starting the fight.
Steve had been concerned that the cowboys would start shooting each other.
Then he noticed that there were no guns in their holsters, and they seemed quite content to use their fists and feet to fight.

In the middle of the fight Steve heard a strange sound, Angel was singing ‘We are the Champions’ while she was fighting.
He laughed out loud, she was a fighting fool and he loved her, he raised his own voice and joined in with her singing the old Queen hit at the top of his voice as they flattened everyone in reach.
His blood was pounding and he felt more alive than he had in years, soon a pile of unconscious bodies surrounded them.

Suddenly a massive concussion slammed into their ears as a shotgun was fired into the air.
Standing in the door of the Saloon was a big man with a handlebar moustache and a smoking shotgun.
‘Everybody stand still and stop fighting or I swear I will blow your fucking stupid heads off,’ he shouted into the sudden hush.

‘Thank God your here Wyatt, ‘said the bartender, ‘look at the damage here, I do believe it was started by that young man in the black coat over there.’
The bartender pointed to Angel who was surrounded by groaning men.

Wyatt Earp walked into the room; he kept his gun trained on Angel as he approached.
When he was close enough he saw that the young man was in fact a lovely young woman and relaxed.
He put up his shotgun and turning to the bartender said ‘ Joe you are a blind idiot, this here is just a young girl and I am sure she didn’t start this mess.’
‘Are you unhurt miss? I do apologise for this unseemly brawl that you found yourself in and I would appreciate it if you would allow me to buy you a drink.’ He offered gallantly.

‘Why thank you Marshall Earp, I would be honoured,’ Angel replied. ‘Allow me to introduce my brother Stephen who is accompanying me in my trip to Washington.’
Steve found himself shaking hands with the famous western legend Wyatt Earp; they located an undamaged table at sat down together.

The bartender brought over three glasses of beer and they sipped them as Wyatt did his best to charm Angel.
She acted the Eastern Belle and with much fluttering of eyelids got the notorious Marshall to regale them with stories of cattlemen and gunfights.

Wyatt was in his element as like most men he loved to talk about himself to a beautiful woman.
He explained that he had the gambling concession at this saloon, which gave him an incentive to keep the peace here as fights were bad for business.

As they chatted together another man joined them, Wyatt introduced him as Doc Holliday a friend of his and equally famous to Steve.
Doc was a thin man with empty sad eyes; he was dying of consumption and knew it, which made him extremely dangerous, as he didn’t really care if he died today or tomorrow.

Any cowhand foolish enough to offend him was challenged to a gunfight there and then, and Doc was still alive albeit barely.
After promising to meet Wyatt tomorrow Angel and Steve left the bar and walking back through the alley jumped home to Steve’s house.

‘How do you feel?’ she asked him.
Steve admitted that he felt a bit guilty about promising Wyatt that they would see him again when they had no intention of doing so.
Angel just laughed and told him that Wyatt was due to meet his soon to be third wife Josie on that very day.
‘It’s best that I got out of the picture before I messed things up,’ she said.

‘Apart from that I feel a lot better than I did, despite a few bruises’ he admitted, ‘I hadn’t realised how a good fight can cheer a man up, thanks for shaking me out of my mood.’
‘I haven’t finished yet,’ she smiled, and dragged him to the bedroom.


Chapter Eighteen Testing ( The Moon )


It was a few days after his birthday and Angel decided to concentrate on Steve becoming more self sufficient with his QT.
‘I want you to jump from here to the top of the giant pyramid at Giza in the year 8500 BC’
She asked him after breakfast.

Steve considered this for a moment and came up with an objection, ‘ One problem with that idea Angel my love, it wasn’t there in 8500 BC.
Therefore I would materialise hundreds of feet in the air.’

‘481 feet to be precise, this is where you have to learn to trust the QT, dear, it’s very user friendly, it would never allow you to materialise inside a solid object.
And if you really had to emerge hundreds of feet in the air you would have to circumvent complicated safety protocols in order to do so’ she replied.

‘What happened to the theory that it was built by Khufu in 2560 BC? ‘He asked.
‘When you have a time machine, theories are the first thing you discard.
The great pyramid was there long before Khufu, he just decided to use it as a tomb for himself, and got his priests to write that he built it.

The Pharaohs made their history to suit themselves. Although to be fair to the Egyptians apart from the three at Giza and the Sphinx they built all the rest of them.’

Steve decided to trust her and was about to activate the QT when another niggling thought made him ask ‘The top of this Pyramid isn’t very big, if we materialise a few feet to the side of it wont we slide down the sides?’

She assured him that the World Brain via the QT was perfectly capable of positioning him within inches of any target on Earth; it even took into consideration Continental Drift.

Not wanting to look a Jessie Steve took a deep breath and pressed the button.
He went from the interior of his house to the top of the Giant pyramid in the blink of an eye.
‘Wow! He exclaimed as he found himself standing on the top stone, he quickly sat down and gripped the edges of the block tightly.

Angel appeared beside him, and looked around unconcernedly, the sun beat down on them strongly, but up here there was a cooling breeze that made it almost pleasant.
Steve asked why they were sitting on rough stone, where was the Electrum tip?

‘That was scavenged a few hundred years ago, that’s why I picked this particular time to visit otherwise we would definitely have slid down the sides.’
Steve was amazed to see that from the base of the structure to the horizon, the land was green and fertile.
Looking down he could see tiny figures of men going about their everyday business, rarely bothering to look up at the man made mountain that had been their companion since birth.

After they had seen their fill, Angel asked him to Spatially jump to the front of the Sphinx that they could see below them with its back to the Pyramid.
‘It’s a lot easier without any temporal component, just visualise where you want to land and the QT will do the rest.
Steve did as instructed, and appeared in front of the Sphinx looking straight at it.

He was puzzled to see that it wasn’t the Sphinx at all but a giant carving of a lion, with it’s eyes fixed on the horizon.
‘What happened to this then?’ he asked when she appeared.
‘Typical pharaoh tactics, by their time water and sand erosion had whittled the Lion’s head down to a featureless lump.

Khufu had his stone masons alter it to show his head instead, that’s why the head is smaller in proportion than the body.’ Angel replied.
‘So it was a Lion then.’
‘Of course it was, what else could it have been, silly.’


As there were no natives within sight they sat in the shade of the Lion’s paws as Steve asked more questions that had occurred to him.
‘How far can you jump with a QT?’
Angel thought for a few moments and answered,’ Depends if you want to be alive when you reach your destination, I suppose.

You could think of it like this, the QT can take you anywhere or when that the World Brain can compute the co-ordinates for.
However it is like jumping from one fixed spot to a non fixed spot.

Consequently the further you jump the more the room for error grows, until you miss your destination altogether.
The great thing about using a Portal, is that both ends of your jump are fixed, and you cannot miss your destination no matter how far away it is, in theory anyway.’

‘So what’s the furthest distance that mankind has jumped to date?
‘Mars’.
‘Wow, although I shouldn’t be that surprised, we were almost ready to go to Mars in my century.

‘You did get to Mars in 2020 but events on earth put space exploration on the back burner for a long time.
The main problem was that there is nothing on Mars worth the effort of getting there.’
‘How about the Moon?’

‘Oh no problem getting there, it’s almost routine, and a very popular place for honeymooners.’ She replied dismissively.
‘Any chance of me going to the Moon?’ he asked hopefully.
‘If you really want to I suppose we could.’

‘Of course I want to, are you nuts I’ve always wanted to since I was a boy, let’s go’, he said excitedly.
‘Whoa big boy, if you think for one second I’m going to use my QT to jump to the Moon you need your head read, it’s a Portal job if ever there was one,’ she protested.

‘We cannot QT there then?’
‘No, if you miss the Moon Station you end up in vacuum and explode like a blood ballon, no second chances.’
Angel was shaken at the thought that Steve had even considered using his QT to jump to the Moon, it brought home to her how little he really knew about the realities of Jumping.

They jumped back to her apartment to prepare for his big trip.
There was only one Portal dedicated to Moon travel and luckily it was in London, they arrived in plenty of time to give Steve a chance to soak up all the details of the experience.

Angel was wearing a silver cat suit, and made a striking contrast to Steve’s habitual black clothing.
When they arrived the Portal was already in use and he watched as a line of freight boxes were pushed into the ring to disappear from sight.

Angel explained that conventional spacecraft had taken the Lunar Portal to the Moon in pieces and it had been assembled at the moon base.
The Moon orbits Earth at a fair clip, in an elliptical orbit, and the Earth itself wobbles about as it spins.

Only the fact that the Moon always presents the same face to the Earth was the only thing that made the calculations astronomical instead of impossible.
She hoped that she had impressed upon Steve that he must never ever try to jump across space on his QT.

She need not have worried, he was still pretty nervous about jumping in the first place, let alone risking death in vacuum, he was convinced.
The light changed subtly and Angel grasped Steve’s hand in hers and walked firmly towards the waiting metal ring.

Steve whispered to her ‘why are you holding my hand, you said there was nothing to be afraid of’.
‘I lied.’
They stepped together through the Portal.

The MOON.

The first thing he noticed was the Sixth Gee gravity, he couldn’t help bouncing about, and as for what it did to Angel’s anatomy.
Was he the only man here who had difficulty averting his eyes from her breasts as they bounced about unrestrained.

‘Shit, I should have worn a bra here, I’m nearly poking my own eyes out.’ She moaned.
Apart from the gravity there was little to show they had arrived on the Moon.
They were in a metal walled room, with the Portal at one end and a door at the other.

They bounced towards the door, with Steve enjoying it more than Angel, ‘Are we being met? He asked.
‘Yes,’ she answered as the door hissed open onto a concourse that was full of tourists milling about and reading the multitude of warning signs that made the plain steel walls a colourful mosaic.

‘There’s John now, our B.T,O, representative’ Angel said, ‘can you see him?’
Steve would have been hard pressed not to see him, John was fourth generation colonist and he was almost seven feet tall and very slender.
He wore a plain loose coverall and didn’t so much walk as glide across the floor.

‘Thank Selene that your British’ was the first thing he said,’ other races seem to want to shake hands all the time, and a Selenite’s bones tend to be a bit brittle, we avoid physical contact with Earthers as much as possible.’

‘I quite understand,’ said Angel, and made the introductions.
‘A Selenite? Steve asked.
‘Yes we have named Earth’s moon Selene, the name Moon simply described a small body orbiting a larger one.
It wasn’t really a proper name at all, tourists always give themselves away by referring to Selene as The Moon.’

John escorted them to their room and gave them the standard warnings about not opening any windows etc.
Angel giggled and told Steve that it was a joke, as they were now almost half a mile underground there were no windows to open.
John just smiled to himself and showed them how to operate the various devices in their room.
He arranged to meet them in an hour for lunch in the Viewing room and left them to settle in.

‘Wow he could be a very prickly person if you got on his bad side I think’ opinioned Steve as they unpacked the little they had brought with them.
Angel believed that all colonists throughout history became very proud of their achievements and sometimes saw criticisms where none were intended.

‘Why are we sharing a room?’ he felt he should ask.
‘Room is still at a premium here, every room has to be cut out of solid rock so people usually have to share.’

There wasn’t much to do, and the travelling hadn’t tired them so they sat and looked through the base computers tourist information together.
Angel showed him how to download it onto his implant so he couldn’t get lost on the base.




‘Why did you hold my hand back there? He persisted.
‘Sorry about that, but I feel in control with my QT, using a Portal takes that control away and I tend to feel vulnerable.’
‘To be honest,’ he said lying like a gentleman, ‘I was glad of your hand as I was pretty scared back there.’
She looked at him speculatively for a few seconds but said nothing.

They made their way to the Viewing room and found John was already arranging a table for them.
They sat down next to the main window; it was three feet high and an astonishing twenty feet long.

It took up one entire wall of the room and as they looked through the menu they witnessed the gradual rising of the Earth over Selene’s horizon.
Steve and Angel both sat entranced at the spectacle until the Earth had reached its zenith in the velvet black sky.

‘Sorry John,’ apologised Steve ‘but that was memorable, I suppose your used to it by now.’
‘It holds no interest for Selenites, although the sight of all that water out in the open, does make us a bit envious.’
‘Wouldn’t you like to visit it? Angel asked.
‘No, I would weigh six times more than I do normally and my bones couldn’t take it.’

‘Don’t you have anti-gravity yet? Steve asked Angel.
John looked very puzzled at this remark, so Angel felt she had to explain that Steve wasn’t only a tourist from Earth he was a Twentieth century man as well.

John’s attitude changed remarkably at hearing this and a welcoming smile spread over his elfin features. ‘A time traveller, what do you think of what we’ve done to your ‘Moon’ then?’

Steve told him quite honestly that he was extremely impressed by all that he had seen so far, and they were soon deep in conversation.
Angel took the opportunity to look around the Viewing room, tourists took every table and they were all staring avidly at the scene outside.

One nervous tourist asked what would happen if a Comet smashed the window, she was assured that there was no chance whatsoever of a Comet smashing the window, as they were made up of snow.
Angel smiled as she listened to armchair spacemen airing their knowledge of things cosmological.

She knew that there was no chance of anything smashing the window, because it wasn’t a window at all, but just a gigantic viewscreen.
The Moon base had been built over three hundred years ago, it had been cut out of solid rock for protection against solar radiation and the vicious temperature changes that occurred on the surface.

They were half a mile below ground, and the Viewing room was there purely for tourists.
Eventually the men ran out of conversation and food that had been served and eaten during their mutual admiration session.
John had things to do and saw them back to their room before saying his goodbyes.

There were two beds in the room and Angel chose the one nearest the view screen, she decided to shower and go to bed.
Steve was too excited to think of sleeping so he said he would go for a walk and explore for a bit.


He walked down the corridor and using his implant made his way to a certain location, known to millions of twentieth century space fans.
It had been turned into a tourist attraction of course but that didn’t tarnish its importance to Steve.
The Base had been built on Mare Tranquillitatis, The Sea of Tranquillity.

Steve was on the surface of the Moon, and he was looking at the lunar Lander that had brought Neil Armstrong and his crew to the moon for the very first time on July 20th 1969. The area was protected from the vacuum of space by a transparent hemispherical dome.

It could obviously be polarised to protect tourists from the naked sun, and he assumed it had a high lead content to shield them from radiation.
His eyes however were all for the actual Apollo 11 Lander itself and the historic footprint that was still there beside it. Fortunately the blast from the lunar escape module had not swept it away and it had now been sprayed with a transparent material to protect it forever.

As he stood lost in thought, Steve felt a strong breeze on the back of his neck, he turned around to check if he had left the door to the exhibit open, but it was shut tight, and to his horror he saw a red light flashing over it.

The light illuminated a sign warning of a vacuum leak and the Base’s safety protocols had sealed the door to protect the base from explosive decompression.
Shit, thought Steve I’m on the wrong side of the door, he heard a shrill whistling sound as the air in the dome screamed out into the vacuum of space.

He was hammering at the door in panic when he remembered Merlin.

‘Merlin help me’ he screamed.
HOW CAN I HELP STEVE?

‘Get me out of here for God’s sake I’m suffocating’
WHERE DO YOU WANT TO GO?

‘Who gives a fuck; take me home, now.


Steve was standing in front of his kettle in his kitchen.
I THOUGHT A CUP OF TEA MAY PROVE BENEFICIAL.
HOWEVER EVEN THOUGH I HAVE A BRAIN THE SIZE OF A PLANET I CANNOT ACTUALLY MAKE YOU ONE.
STILL YOU WOULD NOT WANT TO BECOME TOO DEPENDENT ON ME. WOULD YOU?

Steve just stood there taking deep breaths until he calmed down enough to thank Merlin for saving his life.
He then put the kettle on and sat down at his breakfast table to sip his tea and talk to his saviour.

‘Thank you again, I panicked badly there.’
WHEN SOMEONE IS TRYING TO KILL YOU, PANIC IS SOMETIMES A GOOD REACTION.

‘How do you mean, kill me, I thought it was a micrometeorite strike.
DO YOU WANT ME TO COMPUTE THE ODDS AGAINST THAT HAPPENING JUST AS YOU GOT THERE?

‘No, but no one could have known that I would be there at that time. Even I didn’t know I was going there until I was in the corridor, I saw it on the Tourist menu and suddenly decided to visit it.’
ERROR, THERE WOULD HAVE BEEN A RECORD OF YOUR VISIT ON THE BASE COMPUTER.

‘Yes but to have advance notice you would have to see those records and then…
GO BACK IN TIME TO SET UP THE AMBUSH?

‘Oh my God, another time traveller is trying to kill me, why?
CANNOT SAY DEAR BOY.

‘Can’t or won’t?
WON’T

‘Surely you must know.’
NO ANSWER WAS THE SAD REPLY.

‘Do you know where people with Implants are at all times?
YES

‘You know where all the Time Agents are at all times.
YES

‘You must have known where Agent Red was all the time.
YES

‘Why didn’t you tell Angel?’
YOU NEEDED TIME WITH THE QUANTUM TUNNELER.

‘I thought I was working for the good guys.’
YOU ARE.

‘Then the people trying to kill me are the bad guys, right?
I CANNOT SAY

‘Who is your enemy?
I HAVE NO ENEMIES.

‘Well I obviously have, so I had better get prepared for their next attempt, can you take me to Rockie’s weapon’s shop in New York at three am, I need to do some shopping.’
DONE.

He arrived in a deserted shop in New York, Steve had only been there once before when on a holiday just after he joined the Paras. and he could still remember it clearly.
The place was full of weapons, and they were all for sale.

Being young and full of himself as a Para he was crushed to learn that although trusted by the British government to bear arms for his country, he wasn’t allowed to buy any of the weapons on show.

On his return to Britain, he had on occasions purchased a few non-lethal items from Rockie’s via the Internet, the shock baton being one of them.
Steve picked out a Shock Baton to replace the one that Angel had snapped in half, and a Kevlar jacket that gave the same projectile protection as a flak jacket, without the bulkiness, with matching pants.

He then chose a short barrelled S&W Revolver capable of taking 38 Special or 357 Magnum cartridges.
A shoulder holster and both types of cartridges completed his order.
He worked out the price and left sufficient cash in the till to cover it.

Steve looked in the mirror and decided he looked like a version of the terminator.

‘Merlin can you get me back to Angel about fifteen minutes after I left her?
YES.

‘Please do so.’
DONE.

Steve arrived outside their door and quietly let himself in, the lights were out so he got undressed and slipped into the bed nearest the door.
He was pulling the covers over himself when his elbow knocked against something warm and soft.

He froze, it was Angel, she must have got into the wrong bed, he tried to slip out of bed without disturbing her but she turned over in her sleep and her arm fell across his hip. Again he froze hoping she would turn back over, but her hand slipped down between his legs until it found something to cling to.

A voice whispered in his ear, ‘either a gorilla has just sneaked into my bed or it’s you Steve.’
Her hand gave him a squeeze,’ is that your shock baton, or are you planning to take advantage of a sleeping woman?’

‘I’m sorry Angel, I was sure you had chosen the bed nearest the View screen.’ He whispered back.
‘Excuses, excuses, you were going to ravish me weren’t you, you bad boy.’
‘No, it was just a mistake, I’ll get out and get in the other bed.’

‘OK then I forgive you, but as a punishment you will have to leave this here for me to play with.’ and she gave her prize a gentle pull, before sliding down under the covers.
Steve gave up and accepted his punishment like a man.


The next morning he got up early and was dressed in his new gear so it was the first thing she saw as she emerged from the bedroom.
She was putting the final touches to her hair when she saw him and stopped in surprise. ‘Hey, big boy don’t you look good, where did you get that?

‘I just popped over to New York last night and picked it up’ he replied offhandedly secretly hoping to impress her with his achievement.
He was about to tell her the whole story when he noticed her face had lost its colour and with a scream of rage she threw herself at him.

The next thing he knew was that he was being held up at arms length and she was slamming him against the nearest wall screaming at him in rage.
‘You stupid, stupid fucking Bastard, stupid, stupid, stupid,’ with each ‘stupid’ he was slammed hard against the unyielding steel.

He tried to loosen her hands from his jacket but they were like steel clamps and her eyes were blazing with fury, and surprisingly tears were running down her face.
He decided to go limp and hope she would think he was unconscious, but before he could try it she threw him across the room onto the bed by the view screen.
Angel collapsed to the floor hugging herself and rocking back and forward as the tears ran down her face.


Angel was terrified; Steve had been jumping across space, from the moon to New York City and back as if it was nothing.
There were a thousand ways he could have been killed, and it would have been her fault.
He obviously didn’t take her seriously.

It must be because they were lovers that he was dismissing her warnings so cavalierly.
A sharp pain seemed to rip through her as she realised the only way to do her job and keep him safe was to end her sexual relationship with him.

She suddenly realised what the expression ‘Broken Heart’ meant, she had felt her heart break at the realisation of what she must do.
Angel also had answered her own previous question, did she love this hairy primitive stupid arsehole of a man, and yes she did. Fuck him, fuck all men.

She got up and walked into the bathroom where she spent an hour composing herself, and repairing the damage her tears had done to her face.
She took a deep breath and opened the door, to find that Steve had wisely left the room.

Steve had watched in horror as she had sat and cried after hurling him away from her, he had never seen Angel cry before, and certainly not in such a broken hearted way.
She suddenly stopped crying and with a cold expression on her tearstained face got up and went into the bathroom.

‘I’m in the shit, I don’t know why but I’m certainly in deep shit,’ he thought to himself.
Steve didn’t have a lot of experience in these matters but he knew enough to realise that his best course of action would be to make himself scarce until things cooled down.

He painfully stood up and crept out the door, every bone in his body hurt.
Hobbling down the corridor he made his way to John’s quarters, luckily John was in and Steve was invited in to join him.

John was shocked to see the state Steve was in and assumed that he had been in an accident.
Steve didn’t know if John could get Angel into trouble with the WTO so he told him he had fallen down some stairs.
It was a pathetic story, as in a sixth gee environment such a fall wouldn’t hurt an egg, let alone a big strong man like Steve, but John accepted it without a murmur.

He allowed Steve to freshen up in his bathroom, and then they went to a nearby bar for a drink.
Steve was surprised that alcohol was readily available on Selene, but John just ordered him a brandy and joined him in sipping it as they chatted about Steve’s century.

An hour and six brandies later Steve had told John the truth about his dice with death and that he had upset Angel badly, Angel found them chuckling together over an old earth joke.
Steve was drunk and gave no protest as she picked him up and half carried him out of the bar and towards the Portal room.

The Portal engineers wouldn’t allow a drunken person to use the device so she had to take him back to their room to sober up.
All the time she was dragging him around he was apologising to her, he kept saying that he was sorry to have made her cry.
Worst of all he kept on telling her that he loved her, over and over.
She finally had enough of listening to his babbling and taking his QT from him, locked him in their room while she went for a drink herself

John was still at the bar and she joined him for a drink, her choice was Vodka and she threw the first one down her throat so fast she didn’t taste it, she then had a few more to keep John company.
John had taken a liking to Steve for some male reason that she didn’t understand, and the first thing he did was to ask her why she had beaten Steve the way she had.

‘It was for his own good,’ she replied tersely.
‘You know he loves you, don’t you?
‘He loves my tits and ass.’
‘You know he was nearly killed last night?’
‘Yes I do, the stupid arrogant bastard, if he had only listened to me it wouldn’t have happened.’ She spat.

John was clearly puzzled, ‘ did you tell him not to visit the Lunar Lander, why would you do that?
‘What Lunar Lander? I’m talking about him jumping to Earth the stupid Fuck Pig Bastard.’ She replied.

‘Whoa, Angel, I think you are confused, Steve was nearly killed when he visited the Lunar Lander exhibition on the surface last night.
The dome was holed and he was trapped in the dome with no way out.
From what you have just said he was lucky to have a QT on him, he must have panicked and jumped for the best known place he could think of, his home.’

‘How was the Dome holed, a micrometeorite?
‘We wish it was, but we found footprints outside the part of the Dome where the hole was, someone deliberately tried to kill him.’
Angel put her head in her hands and sat quietly for a while. It was just possible she had misjudged the situation and been a bit too hard on Steve.

‘I can accept that he may have jumped to Earth to save his life, and I could forgive him for that.
However, why the fuck did he then jump back here again?’ she asked John coldly.

‘I asked him that, he said he didn’t want you to worry where he was, and he was afraid you would be attacked next, so he took the risk.
As I said before, he loves you, and he wanted to be here to protect you’ John replied gently.’
Have you never done anything foolish for the one you loved?

‘I’ve never loved anyone in my whole life,’ she answered sadly, ‘ I wouldn’t recognise love if it bit me,’ she lied.
Much to Johns surprise Angel reached up and kissed him, ‘Goodbye John and thank you for everything.’ She walked out of the bar and back to her room.

Angel felt that she could breath again, the crushing bands of tension had relaxed around her chest and she even felt a small smile trying to manifest itself on her mouth.
It had not been his fault after all; the poor baby must have been terrified to be trapped on the Moon with his air whistling out like that.

Some bastard had tried to kill him; she would rip them to pieces if she got her hands on them.
Nobody would hurt her man while she could help it, nobody.
When she got back to her room Steve wasn’t there, her heart jumped into her throat in anxiety, she called his name and to her total relief he answered from the bathroom.

‘It’s OK ‘she said ‘I just wanted to know where you were, take your time in there.’
‘I think I’ll stay in here till we leave the Moon,’ he said through the bathroom door.
‘Are you sick? She asked with concern.
‘More scared than sick, I must confess.’

‘You don’t have to be scared now, I’m with you.’
‘At the risk of sounding like a big Jessie, It’s you I’m scared of.’
‘What, you don’t have to be scared of me, I wouldn’t hurt you for the world.’
‘Tell that to my bruises.’ He groaned

Angel suddenly remembered slamming him over and over against the steel wall and felt such a rush of remorse that tears again filled hers eyes. ‘Steve please come out, I’m so sorry that I hurt you, please I want to see you.’
The bathroom door slowly opened and he peeped out at her, the moment he saw she was crying he threw himself towards her and swept her into his arms, hugging her tightly.

‘Don’t cry again Angel,’ he begged, ‘I’m so sorry for hurting you really I am I won’t ever do it again I promise.’
She hugged him back and felt him gasp as his aching body protested at such treatment.
She sat him down on the bed and removed his clothes to see the extent of his injuries.

She was dismayed to find that his entire back was covered in bruises, as were his arms where she had thrown him across the room.
‘I’m so sorry Steve, I didn’t realise I had hurt you like this, what must you think of me? She said sadly.
‘Hey, I’m a big boy you know, I’ll get over it.’

He said bravely. ‘ Oh by the way, I didn’t say anything silly when I was drunk, did I?
‘You were muttering to yourself a lot, but I couldn’t understand any of it I’m afraid,’ she lied.
‘Good, I rarely drink at all and I probably talk a load of bollocks anyway,’ he explained.

Angel rubbed some pain killing cream onto his back and arms and he relaxed as it eased the pain in his body.
At her prompting he told her all about his adventure in the dome, and how he had acquired the protective gear before coming back.
‘Why did you come back here?’ she asked quietly.

‘You could have been next on their hit list, I came back to look after you of course.’
He said as she rubbed his back.
Steve felt warm drops hit his naked back, ‘what’s that your putting on me now,
It’s nice and warm whatever it is, I love you rubbing it in.’

Angel let her tears fall onto his poor bruised back and gently rubbed them in as he asked.
They waited until the cream allowed Steve to get dressed and move without groaning, before they again attempted to leave the Moon.
There were no problems this time and they walked hand in hand through the Portal and back to Earth.


This time it was Earth’s gravity that saved his life, weak as he was, the moment his legs felt the six times pull he simply collapsed to the floor.
He thought he heard a vicious crack as something brushed his hair, before he banged his head against the hard floor.

He must have been concussed because he could have sworn that he heard Angel screaming like a banshee, and tearing someone to pieces. Arms and legs flew everywhere and to top it all he definitely saw a severed head roll past his eyes.
He thought it best to pass out, and did so quietly.

As Angel stepped out of the Portal she saw a sudden movement in the waiting crowd, a shot rang out and Steve went down, she went insane.
The military boost slammed into her body as she went ballistic.

Before the assassin could even lower his gun she was on him, her fingernails glowed as the monofilaments on their leading edges cut through the molecules of dust in the air.
She didn’t register the fact that she was screaming so loudly that all in range had to put their hands over their ears to protect them.

The military boost used every weapon possible and its hard to fight when your hands are over your ears.
The assassin however didn’t have time to put his hands over his ears, as she first cut off the hand that held the weapon, along with his entire arm.

Before they reached the ground his other arm was following them down.
His legs went next and as his torso fell towards the floor his neck met her hand coming up the other way.
Angel’s hand sliced through the assassin’s neck and she saw his head bounce away across the floor.

Finally the boost cut out and she collapsed onto the cold floor of the concourse amidst the pieces of her enemy.
Angel awoke to the feel of kisses on her face, and looked up to see Steve with a silly grin on his face beaming down at her.

He was sitting on the floor cradling her head in his lap and stroking her hair. ‘Welcome back princess, I wondered what was happening for a minute, but I should have known you would be alright.’
‘Are you OK? She asked exhaustedly.

‘I’m fine I just couldn’t take the change in gravity so suddenly, so I fell down.’
He bent over and kissed her again, ‘Sorry about kissing you so much but I just love to kiss you, and this has been a good opportunity to do it without you telling me off.’

She reached up and pulled his head down so she could kiss him back, ‘I thought you were dead, I saw the gun too late and then you fell and I lost it totally.
The boost should only be used for a few seconds at a time otherwise it can damage the users body.’

‘Guess what, It was a robot that shot at me; there are bits of it all over the place.
I thought that robots weren’t allowed to hurt people.’ He complained.

He was babbling on a bit but she forgave him, ‘Steve, get me out of here please, take us to someplace safe for a bit till I get my act together.’
Steve thought for a second and asked Merlin to take them both to a place he remembered.
DONE.


Chapter Nineteen Seven Veils.

Angel woke up in a clean warm bed; above her were old wooden beams and the pillows smelt nice and fresh.
She could hear Steve’s voice from a distance, he sounded calm and unthreatened so she relaxed and carried out an internal diagnostic.

The rest had done her good and she was back in the green on all systems.
She released a general purpose stimulant into her blood and felt herself reacting to it.
Her implant recorded the fact that she was now in the year 1943, she researched the time period and swotted up on all the things an agent has to know to blend into a timeline.

She heard Steve approaching accompanied by the chink of cups and saucers, she smiled as he came into the room carrying a tray of tea and biscuits.
‘Hello beautiful, how are you feeling? He asked with a smile.
‘Fine, where are we?’

Steve told her about the pub he had stumbled upon during his first jump; he had thought it would be a good place to hide.
Steve had arrived at the Pub with Angel in his arms unconscious, and wrapped in a big blanket.

He told them that there had been a raid in London and his wife had been hurt by the blast.
They needed a place to stay until she recovered, the barmaid remembered him from his first visit and escorted them to a guest room upstairs, where they put Angel to bed.
Knowing that her cat suit would be a dead give away that they were not from London, he told the Landlord that the bomb blast had ripped his wife’s clothes to pieces.

Steve had to go into town and buy all new for her; the barmaid accompanied him into town and chose the right sizes for him, they were in the wardrobe awaiting her recovery.

Angel sat up in bed and enjoyed her tea and biscuits, while listening to Steve chatter on about the war and associated things.
‘What time is it Steve? She asked.
‘It’s half past ten at night,’ he replied.
‘No it isn’t, it’s bedtime, come and join me please, I need you’


The next morning Angel was up and dressed early, and they were both eating a full English breakfast in the small area of the pub set aside for bed and breakfast guests.
Steve loved his bacon and eggs, although as a single male he normally made to with toast in the mornings.

He watched with delight as Angel demolished her breakfast, he had never seen her eat so much.
She explained that the boost used up her energy extremely fast and her body needed all the help it could get to recover. She was dressed for the period and she looked a knockout.

The barmaid was a large bosomed girl herself and she had chosen a dress that made the most of a big girls assets.
On the moon Angel had tied her hair up to save it getting in the way, but now it was left loose and fell down her back, it was just wavy enough to remind him of a waterfall made of gold.

‘Steve, can I ask you something? She said.
‘Anything’.
‘Would you climb the highest mountain for me, if I asked?’
‘You know I would.’
‘Would you swim the deepest sea?’
‘With lead boots on,’ he smiled.
‘Would you give me your toast?’

The other guests looked up in astonishment as the large man at the corner table suddenly laughed out loud, and passed his share of toast to his wife.
Steve watched as she finished off his breakfast as well, she delighted him; he couldn’t get enough of her.

He was trying his best not to fuss over her too much like a young lad with his first real girlfriend, but he loved her so much that it hurt to not see her.
After breakfast they went for a gentle walk in the country to get some fresh air and discuss what their next step should be.

Steve had brought a blanket and they sat on it by a small river and talked.
Steve didn’t know how to bring the subject up gently, so he just asked her straight out. ‘Angel, although I was a bit stunned from banging my head on the floor I’m sure that I saw a beautiful young woman ripping a metal robot to pieces.

I know you have this boost thing, but that just makes you move quicker.
How did you take apart that robot so easily?’
He was dreading that she might tell him that she was some kind of cyborg, or indeed a robot herself, although as he had made love to her more than once he was sure he would have noticed if she was.


Angel had been waiting for this question since the attack and had considered various replies, ranging from the very technical to the one she had decided on using.
‘Pass me the spoon please Steve,’ she asked.

He handed her the metal spoon and watched as she held it up in front of his eyes.
He jerked back in surprise as her fingernails began to glow, she gently brushed the spoon with the edge of one fingernail and the spoon was neatly cut in half.

‘It’s all done by a monofilaments and nanosurgery, I’ve had them implanted into the leading edges of my fingernails. They are retractable and can cut through almost anything. The glow is caused by dust molecules being cut apart as they blow into them.’ She clarified.

Steve had a worrying thought, ‘Angel the first time we made love by the pool, apart from wearing me out totally. You also scratched my back pretty thoroughly, why am I not in pieces like that robot?’

Angel leaned over and stroked his face with her fingers, to his credit he didn’t flinch.
‘They are retractable, and they stay that way unless I consciously need them to deploy, you never need worry about my hurting you, I would rather die.’
She finished by kissing him soundly.

‘While your being so forthcoming, could I also ask you about love in your century? He asked cautiously.
‘Sure, fire away.’
‘You told me that recently your social life had been non-existent and I understand why, but how about before you got involved with the B.T,O.

Have you ever been in love with someone, for all I know you could have been married and divorced and have children somewhere.
Angel lay back on the blanket and considered his question carefully, this was going to be difficult to answer.
She would have to pick her words carefully unless she stepped on one of his taboos.

‘Without trying to avoid your question, we will have to be sure we are talking about the same thing here.
What does a twentieth century man mean by saying he loves a woman?’
‘That’s easy, it means that he thinks about her all the time, he wants to be with her.

He obviously wants to make love to her, and eventually give her his children, spend the rest of his life with her, and if necessary die for her without hesitation.’
Steve replied confidently, he had thought about this for so long that he had it down pat.

‘I see, have you ever been in love with anyone? She asked.
‘Of course I have, I was madly in love with a girl at school for years but she didn’t know about it.
Then when I was a soldier I fell in love with a young woman and I believe that she loved me too, but I was always being sent away.

In the end she packed me in and married someone who would always be there for her. I don’t blame her really,’ he admitted.
‘So you never gave them children, or spent the rest of your life with them?’
‘I see your point, perhaps I didn’t really love them at all.’
‘Exactly, I believe you simply lusted after them for a while until you got bored and then went on with your life.

It’s the natural thing for most men to do, and there is no shame in it.’ She replied.
‘I wouldn’t know Love if it bit me, I’ve often had a mad crush on a man but that was pure lust and I’ve never tried to fool myself that it was Love.
I’ve never been married, however there is still time for that sort of thing as and when it happens.’

Hearing her say that depressed Steve so he decided to change the subject.
Earlier Steve had asked Merlin if he could tell Angel about him, as usual Merlin had said that Steve had to do whatever he thought best at the time.
Steve took that as a yes, so when they were sitting comfortably he broached the subject to Angel.

He told her everything that had occurred between him and Merlin from the activation ceremony to the present time, and how it was Merlin that enabled him to jump such distances so precisely.

Angel was non-plussed, she had heard of AI’s but hadn’t considered that something the size of the World Brain could be one; it was a bit frightening to think that one intellect had so much power over human beings.
Still she had to admit that it had saved Steve’s life and that made her feel kindly towards it.

‘Why does it want its existence kept secret?’
‘It is vulnerable, if enough systems are shut down it would die,’ he said, ‘and as you know humans are often afraid of things that seem more powerful than they are.’
‘Can I talk to it?’ she asked him.
‘I don’t know, I’ll ask.’

‘Merlin, can you talk directly to Angel?
I CAN TALK TO ANYONE I PLEASE, ANYWHERE OR ANYWHEN.

‘Right, could you say hello to her then please’.
IF THAT IS YOUR WISH.


Angel was watching, as Steve seemed to be subvocalising with himself, then out of the blue a voice was in her head, ‘HELLO ANGEL, I’M MERLIN, PLEASED TO MEET YOU’

Angel despite being used to receiving information via her implant still jumped at the sound of such a voice, it wasn’t loud as such, but it seemed somehow very powerful.

‘I’m in your debt, I believe,’ she replied out loud.
PLEASED I COULD BE OF SERVICE.
THERE IS NO NEED TO SPEAK OUT LOUD, SIMPLY THINK CLEARLY.

‘Thank you, But I prefer it this way,’ she replied politely.
AS YOU WISH.

‘Who is trying to kill Steve?’
I CANNOT TELL YOU.

‘Would you impede our attempts to discover the enemy?’
NO

‘Can you actively assist us?’
NO
‘Can you tell us why?’
NO

Steve interrupted to point out that he had already asked these questions.
‘Just checking.’ She said, ‘we need to know our enemy before we can proceed any further.
Our first clue is the robot that attacked you, does Merlin have any information on the forensic results.

Steve communed for a few seconds, and relayed the information that they found moon dust on the soles of the machines feet, proving it was the cause of the dome leak. Unfortunately it was a standard model robot, which could be programmed to do simple mechanical tasks, such as drilling holes and pointing guns at predetermined targets. The enemy was too clever to allow it to be traced back to them.

‘I assume that our second clue is the fact that our enemy has a QT, so they can jump back and forth to locate us, there must be a spare QT about somewhere,’ said Steve.
‘No, that is impossible,’ said Angel, ‘ there are only twelve QT’s in existence.’


‘Is that correct, Merlin?’ checked Steve.
YES, THERE ARE ONLY TWELVE QT DEVICES IN EXISTENCE.

‘Where are they all now?’
EACH IS IN THE POSSESSION OF A TIME AGENT

‘No prototypes, or missing in action, ones?
NO.

‘Am I the only one to realise that our enemy must be a Time Agent?’ Steve asked.
Angel smiled at him, ‘It has always been obvious that he or she was a Time Agent, the problem is that we don’t know which of the ten it is.’
‘Ten? Oh I see, not counting us I presume.’ He said.

‘We will have to draw them out then,’ she announced.
‘Seems like a plan to me,’ agreed Steve.
As they were being located through records of their actions, they decided to create a trap for the enemy Agent.
With Merlin’s financial help, they booked in to the Honeymoon suite of the London Hilton Hotel.
The most prestigious and expensive Hotel in the world.

Anyone checking on their movements through history would certainly discover this event and hopefully attack them, hoping that they would be distracted by each other at the time.
All that was left to do was to thank Margaret the barmaid, and after paying their bill leave the pub that had been their sanctuary for such a brief time.
It was time to go on the offensive.


The Hilton was nothing like any hotel Steve remembered, in the richest country in the world; it was the most expensive Hotel.
The rooms were themed, and you simply had to ask for any scenario and they would create it for you.
To assist those guests lacking in imagination there was a standard menu.

It ranged from a monastic cell, for those who wanted to get away from it all for a few days, to an authentic reproduction of a Roman orgy.
Angel let Steve choose, and after serious thought he picked the Arabian Nights suite.

‘Why this theme? Angel asked him in interest.
Steve explained that he had spent some time in Arabian States during his tours of duty and had always remembered the belly dancers and the soft silken décor of the various Clubs he had frequented.

‘I’ve seen lots of strippers in my time, but the most erotic dance for me was the Dance of the Seven Veils, I’ve never forgotten it.’
After they had unpacked and settled in, they looked through the menu of entertainment provided by the Hotel for its guests.

‘There’s a thought Angel, have you got replicators yet? Like in Star Trek.’
Angel admitted that although Replicators had not yet been invented, that could create food by recombining atoms and molecules.
It was possible by using the Portals to transport food from one place to another.

Owing to the operating costs, Portals were only used for mass transportation of food, for example if there was too much of one type of foodstuff produced by a rich country like Britain.
Then the surplus could now be sent to the poorer countries instantly rather than be destroyed as happened in his time.

‘Excellent, it’s good to know that Britain has still got a heart after all.’
Angel just shrugged, It’s cheaper than having to burn it I suppose.’
Another advantage of the Hilton was the level of security, no one be they human or robot, could get in to see them without their express permission.
That is unless they had the use of a QT, in which case security was a meaningless concept.


Angel hadn’t had sex with Steve since the Moon episode; her feelings at that time had been so intense that they had shaken her badly.
She honestly wasn’t sure whether to carry on being lovers or cool the relationship down to colleagues again.
She was actually scared of the situation, which wasn’t like her at all, what was this primitive doing to her head?

As part of the theme they had been dressed in Arabian costumes, Steve as a Sultan, and Angel had been dressed as a dancer.
The evening started with a lavish feast, just for to two of them, no expense had been spared.
It wasn’t just Steve who was impressed at the opulence of the Hotel, Angel had never been anywhere as magnificent as this.

Even the real roman orgies of Caligula were not all that impressive, especially if you took into consideration the smells.
This was absolute luxury, there were so many exotic dishes that they could only taste a small piece of each otherwise they would be full before the feast ended.
Music was in the air and there was plenty to drink.

Steve wasn’t a big drinker but he enjoyed a glass of wine with his meals and was trying out a different wine with each course, though to keep his head clear he was only having a mouthful of each.
Angel however seemed determined to get drunk as fast as possible and was trying all the various Spirits that the Hotel had to offer, and mixing them with a range of recreational drugs.

Steve noticed that she seemed to be relaxing and laughing a lot more than she had been since the Moon.
He had been telling her stories about his time in the army and the sometimes-embarrassing anecdotes had her in stitches.

In return she had opened up a bit about her family, they were apparently related through her mother to the Royal Family, which now of course was simply a symbolic anachronism that Britain liked to keep just to be different from the rest of the world.

Steve in the light hearted spirit of the moment immediately knelt down in front of her and putting his big hands over her small delicate ones, swore allegiance to her, and pledged himself her Knight Protector.

Angel giggled and accepted him as her only true Knight.
‘I must give you a favour to wear for me, which colour is your favourite? She asked indicating her dress, which seemed to be made of various coloured semi-transparent silks.
Steve chose red, as that was his favourite colour

‘Let me get it for you’ she whispered huskily, ‘it might take a minute as it’s under a few others.’ She leant towards him and gave him a slow sensual kiss.
Angel got up and glided into the center of the room where there was a clear space.

She was swaying to the music and began to dance to it, her eyes locked on his as he sat on a cushion where she had left him.
After a while of letting her body move to the music Steve noticed that her eyes had closed and that she was now dancing for the sheer pleasure of feeling the diaphanous silks against her body.

Angel had released a sexual stimulant into her system so she could enjoy the feel of the silken scarves as they rubbed against her body.
Every now and then she would loosen a silk scarf and gently pull it so that it slid around her body until it fell to the ground.

It was difficult to tell precisely in the flickering light of the candles, but he thought he could count seven different colours of silk that made up her dress.
Only when the second veil fell to the floor did he realise that she was performing his favourite dance for him, and he determined to enjoy every moment of it.

Angel was extremely limber and he watched in amazement as she slowly slid down to the carpet in a full splits, where she writhed slowly moving her hands over her body and enjoying the feel of the silk.
As each layer fell away he could see more and more of her naked body.

Steve had often seen her totally naked, but in situations where she wasn’t in a sexual mood, and it was like living in a nudist colony where as everybody was naked it meant nothing special.
Now however she was obviously getting very excited by the combination of the dance the alcohol and the fact that a man was watching her avidly.

He could see her nipples were erect and pushing at the silks that restrained her breasts as she stroked herself all over.
As she swayed her bottom at him he could see that the red silk veil was the very last one and the closest to her body.
It was wrapped between her legs, and went up around her body to where it was tied around her breasts, it was totally transparent.

He was getting turned on in a big way and she made it clear that she had noticed by rubbing herself against him as he knelt in front of her transfixed by the flood of pheromones that seemed to fill the air between them.
Angel was hot and flushed as her dance was bringing her to the edge of orgasm, every time she moved the silks rubbed against her erogenous zones and pushed her closer to the brink.

She desperately wanted him and was restraining herself not to throw herself on him and rip off his clothes, she had taken drugs many times but had never hit such a high in her life as she was experiencing at this moment.
Her body was vibrating as if a charge of electricity was coursing through her, she was moaning to the music and knew that he could hear her.

He was watching her, listening to her, and smelling her she felt totally exposed to him and loved it, wearing only the final red veil she lay on her back and opened her legs wide for him.
Her back arched against the carpet as she thrust herself in his direction, knowing that he could see through the transparent silk and know that she needed him badly.

The final knot was loosened and she slowly pulled the red veil off her body, it slid around her breasts and as it unwound from her it slipped between her open legs and left her naked to his sight.

As she finished the dance Steve noticed the flicker of movement in one of the many mirrors that he had placed around the room, a shadowy figure had appeared behind him and was raising its arm.
He knew that if he was going to be attacked by anyone they would wait until he was totally distracted and then get behind him.

Consequently he had made sure there were no blind spots in the room.
His hand slipped under a nearby cushion and emerged holding his shock baton.
He needed the man alive to answer questions, from his kneeling position he flung himself backwards keeping low and twisting to bring the baton up into the figures groin.

The suddenness of his attack made the assailant fire his weapon prematurely and Steve felt the passage of a bullet as it narrowly missed his moving body.
The baton jarred into the man but as he started to scream in pain he had already began his jump and disappeared via his QT, the assassin had seen Angel leaping at him with her nails glowing and knew he had blown the attempt.

Steve watched as Angel’s naked body hurtled over him and sliced through the space recently occupied by the assassin.
She was swearing furiously, at being caught out like that, her needs had betrayed her and the first thing she had noticed was Steve throwing himself backwards away from her.

By the time she boosted it was all over, Steve could have been killed again and she would have been to blame.
The combination of her raging hormones, the boost drugs and her guilt was too much for her and to Steve's surprise she burst into tears.

Thinking she had been hit by the bullet he sprang to her and checked her for wounds, she didn’t seem hurt but she was crying as if her world had ended.
She was saying sorry, over and over so for want of anything better to do he simply held her tight and rocked her gently, telling her that everything was all right and no one had got hurt.

Angel finally recovered enough to get up and go to the bathroom where she had her implant release a blood cleansing antitdote to all the drugs currently in her system, the effect was to allow her mind for a short time to think as clearly and dispassionately as a machine.

When she finally emerged she was wearing her normal cat suit, and Steve knew the honeymoon was over.
Before he could speak she said she had to go and think something through and would be in touch, then without any further ado she simply vanished.


Steve was stunned for a while, but he decided to let her have some space to think while he got on with the investigation.
They had chosen the Hilton because of it’s security systems ability to record everything that happened within its walls. Its clients knew this of course and had the option of having the recordings destroyed at the end of their visit, or as happened more often they could simply take the recordings home with them as a memento of their stay.

Angel had already instructed that their recordings were to be given to Steve when he left the Hotel.
So after thanking the staff for a great experience Steve picked up the record crystal and jumped to the B.T.O. headquarters so the experts could examine them.

While he waited for the results Steve contacted Merlin to ask where Angel was, but the AI wouldn’t tell him.
Angel had asked it for privacy and it agreed to honour her request.
Steve was perplexed at her actions, as far as he was concerned their trap had worked, they had drawn out the agent and soon should know what he looked like.

As there were only ten to choose from it wouldn’t take long to solve the mystery.
The scientist who was entrusted to examine the crystal came out of the Lab and approached Steve.
‘We have a problem; the assassin obviously knew about the recording facility at the Hilton, he was wearing a lead impregnated mask.
It was impervious to x-rays, so although the scanners could see it was a man by the skeleton they had no way of identifying which of the male Agents it was.

Steve was very disappointed, he had expected the assailant to wear a mask, but had hoped that the x-ray cameras would give him enough evidence to compare dental records to discover the mans identity.
Steve thanked him for his help and jumped back to his house in the twentieth century.

To give himself a break from thinking about the assassin he decided call up the recording of their time in the Hilton so he could relive the experience.
The images appeared to play in front of his eyes as his implant fed the images straight to his optic nerve.

He watched again as she danced for him, he noticed her jerk momentarily during the dance and thinking she had hurt herself asked Merlin why she had done so.
THAT IS A USUAL REACTION TO SELF STIMULATION

‘I don’t understand’
Merlin explained to Steve that Britons of Angels class, often used various drugs to help or enhance their day to day lives, and that Angel had simply released a drug into her system using her implant.

She’s a drug addict? He asked incredulously.
SHE USES DRUGS, AS DO ALL IN HER CENTURY.

He was shocked, the more he learned about this woman the more his world view seemed to have to change.
Steve decided to ask the World Brain a question that had become very relevant to him lately.

‘Merlin, if I gave you some data could you solve a problem for me?’
I WILL TRY

‘This is all the data I have, Steven Steele, Angela Black, Love. Can you solve it for me please?
OF ALL THE QUESTIONS IN ALL THE WORLD YOU HAD TO ASK ME THAT ONE.

‘Sorry, I don’t suppose you know anything about Love, it was stupid of me to ask.’
ON THE CONTRARY. I KNOW ALL THERE IS TO KNOW ABOUT LOVE.
I HAVE IN MY MEMORY ALL THE LOVE STORIES AND LOVE POEMS EVER WRITTEN.
I HAVE SCIENTIFIC READINGS TAKEN OF THOSE IN LOVE.
UNFORTUNATELY THOSE READINGS ARE IDENTICAL TO THOSE TAKEN FROM THOSE IN LUST.
TO ME IT ALL BOILS DOWN TO A CHEMICAL IMBALANCE IN THE HUMAN BRAIN AND I CAN ONLY OFFER YOU MY SYMPATHY.

‘Perhaps it is just lust, I certainly want her all the time, even if I do love her there’s no future in it for us.
As soon as I’ve done what you want you’ll take the QT from me and send me home, won’t you.
THE WHOLE POINT OF THIS EXERCISE IS THAT WE DON’T KNOW WHAT THE FUTURE WILL BRING UNTIL IT DOES.

Steve suddenly had a marvellous idea, ‘Of course, what an idiot I’ve been, all I need do is go forward into the future and see what happens.’
NO TIME AGENT HAS EVER GONE INTO THE FUTURE, NOR WOULD THEY IF I TOLD THEM TOO.

‘Well they may have been indoctrinated, but I haven’t so I’m going, unless you are going to stop me.’
NO.

Steve had to decide how far to go, he picked an arbitrary figure of two thousand years, and set the QT.
Before he activated it he asked Merlin a question.
‘Merlin, in two thousand years time, will you be there, and will you remember me?’
YES.

Feeling somewhat comforted Steve jumped.

Chapter Twenty. The Future


Steve had discussed the Future with Angel previous to going to the Moon; in conversation he had assumed that she had been for a look into her own centuries future.
She had been shocked at the very idea of it and had told him again that the B.T.O. was not a time travel friendly organisation, but would like to ban it if possible.

They would never allow a Time Agent to travel to the future, as they believed that there wasn’t a fixed future to travel to.
Any knowledge learned from the future would influence decisions made in the present, which would change the future, ergo, no travelling to the future.

Steve thought that was a load of rubbish and had said so, he pointed out that he was in his own future and it seemed pretty fixed to him.
To which she said that she could only trust that anything he learned about her time wouldn’t prompt him to try and change anything that had happened between his century and hers, or she might not exist for much longer.

He promised not to deliberately do anything to upset the temporal applecart, and although she obviously didn’t like it she had to accept it because the World Brain said so.
His game plan was simply to go to the year 3000, picked simply because it was a round number, and see what was going on, then return and have a think about it.

Steve arrived at the same spot from which he left, the location of his house, it wasn’t there of course he could see nothing but trees. He sat down by an old oak tree and sent a thought to his implant.
‘Merlin?’
HELLO STEVE, WHAT TOOK YOU SO LONG?

‘Thank God, I wasn’t sure that you would have survived, are you all right?’
I AM ALWAYS ALL RIGHT.

‘Can you give me a brief update on the situation today?’
Merlin gave him a brief list of major events that had occurred during the intervening centuries.
It was presented to him as a menu, each major heading having many sub-headings that he could access if his wished to know more about any particular event.
EXODUS CONTINUES
BARSOOM RESTRICTS IMMIGRATION
BIRTH-RATE STILL DECREASING
SEA LEVELS STILL RISING

Steve studied the data as he sat under the oak tree; it appeared to be scrolling across the inside of his eyelids, at a comfortable reading speed.
The Exodus was the mass emigration of parts of humanity from the Earth to Mars.
Or, to be precise to the Mars of six million years ago.
It had been named Barsoom, after Edgar Rice Burroughs fictional Mars, mainly to differentiate it from the present Mars.

Where the Mars of today was a dead dusty world, Barsoom was almost Earth like apart from being colder than Earth due to the increased distance from the Sun.

Apparently the powers that be, had decided to restrict certain parts of humanity from going there.
The stated reason was to ensure that the Earth wasn’t left empty, and all humanities eggs were not in one basket. Steve however on reading the list of proscribed races had a sinking feeling that eugenics had spun out of control during the intervening years and therefore only the genetically pure were being allowed to leave the Earth.

For some reason the birth-rate was decreasing, but the reasons given were a bit technical so he skipped that one.
The sea levels were rising due to the icecaps melting, a lot of low-lying coastline had been lost to the sea, and there was nothing that could be done about it.


This was the depressing side of time travel, there were lots of situations where knowing what was going to happen didn’t help, the sea levels would rise with or without time travel.
His mother would die of a heart attack regardless of him being able to travel in time, in such cases time travel was irrelevant.

Steve simplified his thoughts of what he had learnt.
He couldn’t do anything about the birth-rate of humanity.
He couldn’t do anything about the rising sea levels around the world.
Could he do anything about the colonisation of Mars? And did he want to?

‘Merlin, any star drive yet?’
NO

‘I’m disappointed we should be out amongst the stars by now, why not?
IT IS DIFFICULT TO CONTROL A POPULATION THAT IS SPREAD AROUND THE GALAXY.

‘You mean it was a political decision to keep us in our own little backwater of space?
YES.

‘Who decided this on humanities behalf?’
BRITAIN.

‘Why am I not surprised, tell me Merlin do you agree with this policy?’
IT DEPENDS ON YOUR POINT OF VIEW.
IT IS SAFER FOR HUMANS TO STAY IN THEIR OWN SOLAR SYSTEM.
HOWEVER IT MAY NOT BE BEST FOR THEM TO STAY IN THEIR OWN SOLAR SYSTEM.
IT IS NOT MY PLACE TO CHOOSE FOR YOU.
‘What your saying is that a human has to choose between two different paths, both having their good points and bad points.’

‘Do we have the technical capability to expand into the galaxy?’
NO

‘No, what do you mean No; we weren’t that far from it in my century, we were already on Mars, even if it was only with remote probes, are you telling me we never went there in person.’
THE FIRST HUMANS LANDED ON MARS 10.10.2020. BEFORE THEN IT WAS NOT CONSIDERED WORTH THE EFFORT.
EVENTS HAPPENING ON EARTH OVERSHADOWED THE SPACE PROGRAM.

‘Yes Angel explained about the plagues, and wars etc. what happened to kick-start it up again.

A PORTAL WAS TAKEN TO MARS BY SPACECRAFT AND SET-UP NEAR THE NORTH POLAR ICECAP.

‘So we can now step from Earth to Mars’.
NO,

Steve was taken aback for a minute, ‘Why not, what was the point of it if you can’t use it?’
THE PORTAL ON MARS WAS THE FINAL ONE OF THE ONE HUNDRED PORTALS NEEDED TO TRAVERSE THE DISTANCE BETWEEN THE PLANETS.

‘Why on earth do we need so many to get to Mars?
SAFETY, THE DISTANCE BETWEEN THE EARTH AND THE MOON IS APPROXIMATELY A QUARTER OF A MILLION MILES.
EVEN WITH ONE HUNDRED PORTALS EACH IN A PRECISELY KNOWN POINT IN SPACE, THEY ARE STILL A QUARTER OF A MILLION MILES APART FROM EACH OTHER.
THE DISTANCE BETWEEN THE EARTH AND MARS IS APPROXIMATELY FIFTY MILLION MILES.

Steve was suitably impressed at the distances involved, ‘so how is it done then?’
I AM ABLE TO COMPUTE THE POSITIONS OF ALL THE PORTALS AND IT SEEMS TO THE TRAVELLER THAT THEY ARE CONNECTED TOGETHER TO FORM A TUNNEL THE LENGTH OF ONE HUNDRED THICKNESSES OF A PORTAL.

‘So a traveller just walks along a steel tunnel made up of one hundred portals and then steps out onto Mars, however in reality with every step they take in the tunnel they travel a quarter of a million miles nearer to Mars?’
CORRECT.

‘You can do this easily?
NO, I HAVE TO CONCENTRATE.

Steve got the impression that Merlin was not joking, and Angel was worried about jumping from the Earth to the Moon.
‘When did Mars become dead?’
ONE MILLION YEARS AGO IT WAS HIT BY A PLANET KILLER ASTEROID AND LOST ITS ATMOSPHERE.

‘So at the most, moving to Mars of six million years ago will give humanity five million years before they have to think about where next.’
THE PLAN IS TO MOVE BACK TO EARTH AS SOON AS THE SEA LEVELS DROP AGAIN.

‘Cant they see how short-sighted the whole business is, there is an entire galaxy out there waiting for us to explore it and we are content to shuffle back and forth between two little planets for eternity.
What if a planet killer hits Earth again? This will need some serious thought before I can even decide what’s right let alone what to do about it.
Lets go home, I miss Angel and I’m dying for a cup of tea.
Steve said goodbye to the Merlin of the future and jumped back to his house in the twentieth century.

‘Merlin could you ask Angel to join me please wherever she is, I need to talk to her.’
I WILL ASK HER.

Steve was pleased to be home, and after cooking and eating a big meal he went to bed to sleep on the information he had received.
First thing in the morning he spoke to Merlin again.

‘Have you contacted Angel yet?’
YES

‘Is she coming?’
UNKNOWN.


Steve thought he knew where she would be so took a chance and jumped.
He arrived on the ledge in the Jurassic, overlooking the lake.
Once he had orientated himself he looked around and saw slim white shape swimming in the lake fifty feet below him.

Steve could have used his QT to get down to the beach, but he now admitted to himself that whether or not she felt anything for him, he loved her madly and needed to impress her.
Consequently he screamed out Geronimo and leaped out to plummet down the fifty feet into the clear water.

As he kicked his way up to the surface sunlight, he was joined in his ascent by a smiling mermaid, naked as usual and effortlessly swimming around him as he broke the surface of the lake.
Compared to her lithe grace he was splashing like a paddle steamer scaring some of the local denizens but attracting others.

He made it to the beach and dragged himself out of the water; she helped him out of his clothes and spread them over a set of branches to dry in the hot Jurassic sun.
As he lay on the sand drying out and getting his strength back Angel crouched on a large rock to one side of him, just looking at him.

She hadn’t spoken to him yet apart from indicating that he should strip off, and now she was experiencing a strange emotion, she was shy.
Not because she was naked in front of him, she honestly didn’t give that a thought, she just didn’t know what to say to him.

The time alone had given her a better perspective on the events at the Hilton and she now realised that she hadn’t been at fault.
She was however embarrassed at running away from him and leaving him defenceless for so long.

To give herself time to think she leapt from the rock back into the lake and swam out towards it’s center.
As she swam strongly away from the beach she remembered how she felt when she heard his shout echoing around the lake.
The sight of him falling into the lake had made her heart leap with joy and a stupid smile had appeared on her face.

As she escorted him in to the beach she was drinking in every feature of him and getting him to strip off was only partly to get his clothes dry.
She had just wanted to see as much of him as possible, what was happening to her? Angel had been perfectly happy with her own company before she had met Steve, but now, time, without him with her, seemed wasted.
What was she to do?


Steve was content to lie on the warm sand and relax, he had found her and that was enough for now.
He smiled as a tongue moved across his belly and he was about to sit up when a blast of fetid air washed over him. He opened his eyes slowly and found himself looking directly into a red maw rimmed with teeth the size of dinner knives but not as clean.

Steve only had a dim recollection of how to handle a Tyrannosaurus Rex from watching Jurassic Park three times, they apparently saw moving food better than static food.
Food of course being anything living that wasn’t it, including other T.Rexes.

He considered punching it in its mouth and running away while it staggered back in shock, but then decided he would just lie still and hope it got bored and went away.
T.Rex didn’t have very good eyes but it did have a good nose and its nose told it that this was food and to bite it and see what happened.

It roared at Steve to freeze him and brought its huge bony head up high above him in order to slam its teeth down into his body.
As its head reached its zenith a white blur flickered past its small red eyes and the entire head carried on going backwards until it rolled down its own back and landed behind its body.

There was a lot of blood in a medium sized Tyrannosaurus and it was shared equally between Steve and Angel as it spurted out of its neck and covered them both.
Walking towards him as he lay there in the red sand she looked as if she was wearing a red cat suit and her teeth blazed white in the red mask of her face.

‘I can’t leave you alone for five minutes without you getting into trouble?’ she scolded him, ‘I’ve decided I’m not going to leave your side from now on whether you like it or not.’

‘Sorry Miss I’ll try and do better,’ he replied contritely, ‘and thank you for saving my life.’
‘Pleased to be of help, now lets wash this stuff off before it gets sticky.’
They both jumped into the lake and splashed around until they were clean.

Just for the hell of it Steve made a small fire and cut off a couple of T.Rex steaks, he stuck them on two sticks and let them dangle over the fire to cook.
While they were waiting he told Angel what he had been up to since they last met.

As soon as he mentioned the future she became very uneasy and asked him not to tell her any details as she had been indoctrinated not to meddle in the future.
He restrained himself to informing her that he believed Mars was the key, and he wanted to go there to see for himself what was going on.

By this time the steaks were cooked and they sat and devoured them washed down by the clear lake water.
Steve knew that despite old films of cavemen fighting dinosaurs it had never happened, the dinosaurs had become extinct millions of years before humans had evolved.
He was therefore the first man to ever eat a T.Rex steak, and although it was a bit tough and gamy he relished every bite.

Looking across the fire he watched Angel as she neatly sliced off small pieces of the steak with her fingernails before popping them in her mouth, seeing her made him happy and he was glad that they were friends again.

Angel was thinking as she ate, and as the fight with the T.Rex had got her worked up again, what she was thinking about was him.
He hadn’t bothered to get dressed yet and seeing him lying beside the fire eating his steak that she had provided made her feel as if they were both primitives and she was his woman.

The thought was surprisingly comforting, and she wondered what he would say if she asked him to stay here with her for ever as a sort of Adam and Eve in the Jurassic. It was a fantasy of course there was this thing he had to do for the World Brain, but the thought was nice and who knows what the future might bring.

The more she thought about him the hotter she became until she suddenly got up and walked over to him.
Steve smiled at her as she knelt down beside him, ‘ Hi, it appears I’m in your debt again, I’m never going to be able to repay you for all you have done for me.’

She had intended to just ask him outright for sex, but she had come to realise that he found her centuries ways a bit cold blooded, so instead she simply leaned over and gently kissed him. ‘ I need you,’ she whispered, and found that this approach worked just as well.

Steve couldn’t have been happier; he would definitely not forget this day now as he made love to his woman beside the dead body of a T.Rex.
Afterwards Angel went to the head of her kill and removed the biggest tooth in its mouth, she walked over to Steve and presented it to him as a souvenir of their day.
When they were both ready, they jumped back to the B.T.O, to arrange their trip to Mars.




Chapter Twenty-one Mars

With the assistance of Merlin it didn’t take that long to arrange for their trip and soon they were walking hand in hand through the Mars Tunnel.
Even knowing what was really happening Steve felt nothing unusual about the trip and he really did think it was just a steel tunnel about one hundred yards long.

‘I’ve noticed that you use Imperial measurement in your century, what happened to Metric?’ He asked her as they walked the tunnel.
‘Britain uses Imperial measurement, and now so does the rest of the world because we say so,’ replied Angel in an off
hand manner.

They arrived at the end of the tunnel and with little ceremony stepped onto the surface of the red planet Mars. Again the difference in gravity was noticeable, although not as much as it had been on the Moon.
The main base was located on the equator for warmth such as is was, but it was still dependent on Earth for survival.

All the water and supplies were Portalled from Earth, there was water at the poles but it was cheaper to get it from Earth.
This wasn’t a tourist planet, it was a hard frontier world and humans had only been here for just over two hundred years. They were in the process of terraforming it but that was a slow process and everybody still had to live in pressurised domes.

They were in one now and had to endure the security procedures required to allow them to pass through into the main base.
This comforted Steve, as it would be impossible for any assassin to enter unrecorded.
There were also no projectile weapons of any sort allowed on Mars, for fear of a dome being punctured.

Mars was a cold planet, its average temperature was minus 67 Fahrenheit but at the pole it was minus 200 Fahrenheit; it had an atmosphere but it was unbreathable and it was best kept outside the domes.

They had been advised to wear thick furs for safety, as although the insides of the domes were heated, it was never very warm anywhere.
Again they had to share a room due to restricted space but they didn’t mind that in the least.


Angel had decided to become Steve’s lover and had told him so when they were in the Jurassic.
He had been delighted at this news and had sworn in turn to stay faithful to her, she had looked at him strangely and explained that being lovers didn’t proscribe them having sex with anyone else it just meant that they would more often than not return to their main partner afterwards.

Steve had promised her that his custom was that although he probably couldn’t physically stop her having sex with someone else, he would beat the shit out of any other man he caught having sex with his girl.

To his surprise she had seemed pleased at hearing this and had initiated further love making, he decided that he didn’t understand women and went with the flow.

As he was desperate to see as much of Mars as possible they asked if there was a vehicle for hire.
The answer was no; all vehicles were the private property of the terraformers, and were jealously guarded.
However they might be able to persuade one of them to take them for a trip around, if they made it worth his while.

They were pointed in the direction of the nearest bar where the terraformers liked to relax and have fun.
It was a harsh world and the men who chose to go and work there considered themselves harder than those on Earth.
The entertainment leaned towards hand-to-hand combat, with boxing, weight lifting and arm-wrestling the current favourites.

Gambling was endemic and they would bet on anything. Steve felt a bit intimidated by all the bulging muscles on both the men and women drinking in the bar.
After buying themselves a drink they asked the bartender if he knew anyone who would take them out for a sightseeing tour.

The man said he would be surprised if anyone here would bother, unless there was an incentive. Steve assured him that they had plenty of money, but was told that all the people in the bar had plenty of mone.
Terraformers earned fantastic money but there was very little here to spend it on.

Things were normally done as the result of a wager so if he wanted a trip outside, he would have to bet something worth having in return.
Apart from the credit given him by Merlin, Steve didn’t own anything worth betting.


Angel walked into the center of the room and removed her thick fur coat under which she wore the standard overalls of a terraformer.
However these overalls were stretched tight over her breasts and buttocks and looked as if they would split if she bent over.
As usual she was naked underneath it and it showed.

A hush spread around as men and some women stared at her in undisguised lust, in a closed society she was something novel and worth a second look.
‘We would like a trip outside please, is anyone interested?’ she asked the quiet room.

A big rugged man with a large Dragon tattooed across his naked chest stepped up to her, ‘what do you offer in exchange for this favour Beautiful one.’
Angel smiled and shrugged, which made her breasts bounce in the lighter gravity, ‘ what do you suggest Handsome man?’

‘The names Jake, my friends call me Dragon and I would bet the trip against an hour of your time, if it doesn’t offend you.’
‘It doesn’t offend me at all Dragon, do you consider yourself to be a strong man?’ she asked politely.

‘I’m as strong as most here, and pretty good at arm wrestling.’ He replied.
‘Fancy a match then?’ She asked.
Steve was grinning like an idiot, he knew how strong she was, and he was already looking forward to the trip.

Jake looked down on the young woman, ‘ you want to arm wrestle me? I warn you I am the current champion and I don’t take it easy on women if they challenge me for a laugh.’
‘Oh no, I wouldn’t think of doing anything as physical as that’, Angel said in a little girl voice, ‘ I meant my
champion here, pointing to Steve.’

Steve almost choked on his drink, ‘Me? I haven’t arm wrestled for years.’ He protested.
Jake looked at him calmly, ‘It’s up to you mate, you look strong enough to me, of course if you lose I get to play with your girl for an hour, what say you?’

Angel smiled at Steve, ‘I have every faith in my man,’ she said to the room.
Steve was furious with her, she had made it impossible for him to decline this challenge, but he was scared that he would lose her, even for an hour.

He channelled his fury and in a quiet voice said, ‘I accept the challenge on behalf of my Lady.’
The patrons of the Bar immediately set up the competition table and Steve sat down facing Jake.

Bets were being taken on the result, and he couldn’t help but notice that Jake as champion was the favourite to win.
Steve was sweating as he waited for the competition to start, what was she playing at? The thought of her with Jake was unbearable; he glared across the room at her only to see her smile at him and appear to mouth the words
‘I love you’ to him.

Steve was electrified, she had never said that to him, ever, his shoulders straightened and his whole attitude changed. He was the first to offer his arm on the table and he gripped Jakes hand firmly.
‘Best of luck mate,’ said Jake.
Steve just grunted and focused all his power into his arm ready for the signal.

The bartender gave the signal by banging his stick on the counter.
At the sound both men threw their weight against each others arm, attempting to force it down so their opponents knuckles touched the wood.

Steve barely noticed the pressure Jake exerted; he had focused all his desire and love for Angel into one total effort.
His arm smashed Jake’s down onto the table so hard that the man went flying as the table collapsed. Steve barely let go in time to save himself being pulled down with Jake.


The crowd was stunned into silence for a few seconds, and then erupted into loud cheering and whistling as they applauded the winner.
Steve was amazed, he had never thought he could win against the champion, he sat stunned until Angel came to him and kissed him passionately.
‘ My hero,’ she whispered,’ I knew you could do it.’

She stood up and announced that the drinks were on them for the rest of the night and the barroom became a party room.
Three hours later they were all drunk and Steve and Jake were singing a song they both didn’t know, whilst Angel and a large breasted woman called Anaconda were doing an impromptu striptease on the bar, as a consolation prize for Jake.

Steve was pleased to see that Angel kept her thong on, although it was so small that nobody noticed it anyway.
They arranged to meet Jake in the morning and staggered away to their room.
Angel had just thrown her coat over herself to get from the bar to their room so she only had to drop it on the floor to be ready for him.

Steve picked her up and ripped off her thong with his teeth, he then threw her onto the bed.
‘Before I give you the rodgering you richly deserve my girl your going to tell me what the hell you were playing at back there.
Did you want Jake to shag you or what? He yelled at her.

‘There was no chance that Jake would beat you,’ she assured him as she lay naked on the bed, ‘you are a primitive man and you are a lot stronger than our modern men in the first place, and on top of that you are from Earth with its higher gravity.

Jake was champion here on Mars but his muscles were used to operating in this gravity field.
In reality he was weaker than you, and I knew it. That’s why I bet on you to win, it was our winnings that paid for the party tonight.’
Steve was mollified, ‘What did you say to me before the
competition, I didn’t quite hear you.’

‘Why lover, I said I had bet on you, why, what did you think I said?’ Angel replied wickedly.
‘Never mind woman, prepare to take your punishment,’ he said and jumped on her willing body.

Later when their passions had eased, she cuddled up to him and asked,’ Steve, why did you yell Geronimo when you jumped on me?’
Steve had discovered the ultimate weapon to use against this unstoppable killing machine; he tickled her until she screamed for merc


They met Jake as planned at the tractor dome and he showed them his vehicle with a flourish.
It had started out as a standard Mercedes-Ford All Terrain Vehicle, which was basically a small submarine on wheels. Each terraformer had customised his ATV to make it as individual as possible, and Jake had fitted out the interior with every comfort he could cram in, but the most striking alteration was the exterior.

Jake had a thing for Dragons, and he had the outer shell reshaped into a realistic Dragon, complete with flamethrowers at the front.
It also had remote grabbing arms, and from a distance could indeed be mistaken for the legendary creature.

Steve decided that Jake or Dragon as he preferred to be called was a very nice bloke and he could easily become friends if they stayed long enough.
Dragon showed no bitterness at losing the contest, and had named Steve Mr. Steel, as his Martian codename.

They all piled into the ATV and it rolled out of the dome onto the naked surface of Mars.
Jake first of all took them to see where he worked, the main goal of the terraformers was to alter the Martian atmosphere to increase the greenhouse effect and warm up the planet.
To this end they were operating robotic factories that as well as producing goods required on Earth, spewed out CFC gasses as a by-product.

Ironically the very gasses that helped mess up the Earth were vital to the terraformer’s plans for Mars.
Lately however Jake had noticed that Earth seemed to be losing interest in making Mars habitable, and there was a lot of work going on down near Olympus Mons.
This was the famous Martian volcano that was sixteen miles high and over three hundred miles in diameter.

It could be seen from Earth with a good telescope, Jake had heard that they were building a giant Portal on the Tharsis Plateau that surrounded the volcano although why they would bother he couldn’t say.
Steve knew why the World Government was losing interest in modern Mars; they had decided to concentrate all their efforts in getting to the Mars of six million years ago.

He asked Jake to take them to Olympus Mons for a look, it wasn’t that far from the Base and they were soon there. Although Jake didn’t have clearance, Angel’s credentials were sufficient to get them onto the construction site.
As WTO Agents the manager showed them around the site and Steve saw the Portal at the center of the complex.

It was enormous, at least five times bigger in diameter than a normal one; it had been designed to move large masses of people on railroad carriages from this Mars to the Past Mars very quickly and efficiently.

It was operating now, and workers were walking back and forth through it as they went about their business. Steve asked Angel if they could take a look at Barsoom, the manager didn’t mind, so they left Jake in a nearby workers canteen and hand in hand walked through the Portal.


It was cold, there were blue skies green forests and a river close by, but it was bloody cold.
He didn’t know exactly what the temperature was but it must be around freezing, it was as well that they wore warm furs.
Their breath formed clouds as they spoke to each other.

Angel stopped one of the workers and asked him what season it was here, she was told it was mid summer.
Angel shivered and quietly instructed her implant to release a capillary relaxing drug that effectively made her feel a lot warmer.

Steve was disappointed he had been brought up on Barsoom novels, but if the heroes of those books were here in their leather strapped loin clothes their bollocks would freeze and fall of in short order.
The heroines also wouldn’t look so sexy wrapped up in thick fur coats all the time.

He had thought to explore for a bit but it was simply to bloody cold to sod about and he suggested to Angel that they get back to Jake, she agreed and they walked back through the Portal and went to meet Jake in the canteen.

‘Hi,’ he greeted them, ‘sit and have a drink and tell old Dragon what’s going on.’
‘I need something hot inside me’ said Steve.
‘So do I’ said Angel suggestively, squeezing Steve’s bottom, the drug that relaxed her capillaries also had the side affect of flooding her erogenous zones with blood and she was feeling very sexy.

‘I can’t believe you could be horney after being in such a cold place,’ he scolded.
They had a drink and some hot food to console Steve, while they explained to Jake what was going on.
He was rightly upset about the situation as he and his mates had worked hard to try and make Mars a habitable planet.

Steve put forward his view that it was a short-sighted policy as far as humanity was concerned, Jake agreed wholeheartedly but was realist enough to know that if the World Government had decided on this then there was nothing he could do to change it’s mind.

‘Well I don’t like it, I wasn’t sure before but now I’m certain that humanity is taking the wrong path here and I’m going to try and change things if I can,’ Steve stated to them both.
Jake was puzzled, ’what do you think you can do mate?’
‘I don’t know yet, but I believe that I can change things if only I had all the information.
Lets get back to Base and I’ll sleep on it.’ He replied.

‘Would you like to bet that you will get any sleep tonight?’ Angel asked innocently.
‘Behave in front of Dragon’ he warned her, ‘or your bottom will end up your warmest feature.’
They got back into the ATV and drove back towards the main Base, the journey was uneventful apart from Angel constantly touching him, and they reached their destination in good time.
They agreed to meet Jake in the bar and went to their room to change.


Angel was red hot, she had been locked in a small cylinder for hours with two males, both of whom wanted her and the resultant pheromones had turned her on fiercely.
She had seriously considered at one point asking Jake to stop the ATV so she could have them both at once, but she realised that Steve wouldn’t have understood, and would have been hurt.
She knew now that she couldn’t bear to see him hurt by anyone, especially her, so she kept quiet and suffered in silence.

As soon as their door closed however she jumped on him and ripped off his clothes, he struggled manfully but to no avail as she pinned him to the bed and distracting him with her breasts impaled herself on him.
Steve lay happily on his back as Angel bounced madly on him.

He had never seen her so wanton before and he loved to watch her breasts bounce wildly as she thrust herself onto him over and over until she screamed in ecstasy and collapsed onto him exhausted and satisfied at last.

As she rolled off him he caught a movement out of the corner of his eye as a figure that had been waiting in the bathroom emerged and ran towards him wielding a knife that had a familiar glow along its edge.
Steve froze for a second as he recognised a monofilament weapon, all he could think of was to move away from Angel, as she lay exhausted on the bed.

‘Merlin, help me,’ he thought desperately as he backed away from his assailant.
DO YOU WANT TO JUMP OUT

‘I can’t leave Angel, he might kill her’.
Steve continued backing away until his back pressed against the wall.
The man advanced holding the unstoppable knife in front of him, he had cornered his target at last and was going to make sure he killed him.

As he focused on Steve the assassin felt an enormous impact to his side as he was hit by the entire bed and flung sideways across the room.
Angel had seen the man as soon as he entered the room; she was going into boost when she noticed the weapon he held.

All her speed and strength was useless against a monofilament weapon, she had to attack him without coming into range of that fearsome edge.
She never carried weapons, as she herself was a weapon so she looked for something to use against the enemy.

For wont of anything better she picked up the entire bed complete with bedding and hurled it with all her augmented strength at the attacker.
As he fell sprawling on the floor she boosted and grabbed Steve. As soon as he realised she was with him he called to Merlin to get them both out of there fast.
DONE.

They appeared in the middle of the barroom to the immense surprise of Jake and his friends.
One minute they had been arm-wrestling and the next two naked people materialised in front of them.
‘Hi Dragon, chirped Angel, how’s tricks?
‘Wow, you are all I imagined and then some,’ Jake said in awe as he drank in every detail of Angels naked body, she was still feeling sexy and her nipples made no secret of it.’

He had been too drunk the previous night to appreciate her strip show with Anaconda.
‘Put your tongue back in and get me a jacket’ she ordered, ‘and something for Steve as well please,’
Jake snapped out of it and they were soon wearing borrowed clothing.

‘That was too close’ Steve said, ‘when I saw his weapon I froze solid.’
‘Just as well’, she said, ‘even I couldn’t go against such a weapon, and we were lucky to escape with our lives.’
They realised that they were safe in the bar so relaxed and had a drink while they thought of their next move.

Angel contacted security and warned them of the intruder and the type of weapon he had, and was told that a full search of the Base would be carried out.
Ten minutes later Security reported that they could find nothing, neither man or weapon.

Given the small size of the Base, they assumed that he must have portalled back to Earth immediately his plan failed.
Steve was disappointed but Angel seemed happy enough with the situation. ‘I’m glad he has gone, and I think we can use his methods against him.’

She reminded Steve that the reason they could always be found was that the assassin used historical records to trace them.

They could now do the same, everyone who entered Mars was recorded and DNA checked to make sure they were who they claimed to be.
Using her authority as an Agent she obtained a list of those people who had arrived on Mars during the last week.

The names meant nothing to Steve but he saw Angel react to one particular name on the list.
A man named as Rufus Wainwright had arrived on Mars a few hours after they had.
‘Do you know this Rufus chap?’ Steve asked her.

‘Yes, we have worked together a few times, you have met him briefly as well.’ She replied.
‘How could I have possibly met him?’
‘He is a Time Agent as we suspected, his code name is Agent Red.’

Steve looked at her in disbelief, ‘ but he’s dead, he’s been dead since the beginning of all this, it’s because he’s dead that I’m here now, what I’m trying to say to you Angel my love, is HE’S DEAD’, he shouted.

‘No need to shout dear, I know it’s hard to get your head around, but he’s only dead in your century.
‘I’m scared to ask, but how can this be possible?’
She took pity on him and after getting him another drink from the bar, tried to demonstrate what was going on.

‘You and I know each other, we met in your bedroom on day twenty of the month of July.
I now travel back in time to day Nineteen of the month of July, you see me across the road you notice me because I’m so sexy but you don’t know who I am.
However I know you and I cross the road to kiss you, but I am hit by a car and killed.

Now concentrate on this bit, I know you at that point in time, but you don’t know me.
When I appear, sitting on your chest the next day you would be forgiven for thinking I’ve returned from the dead, but I haven’t, I’ve just met you for the first time.’

‘Strangely enough I follow that, but why would Agent Red after trying to kill me a few times end up being killed in my time by a car? Said Steve.
‘He must have thought he would have a better chance to kill you if he met you earlier,’ she replied.

‘Ah, does that mean he can’t kill me and didn’t kill me before he was killed?
‘I wouldn’t bet my life on it, and that’s exactly what you would be doing if you relax and let down your guard,’ she warned.


‘Well as far as I’m concerned our plan worked out well, we know he is no longer on Mars and won’t be allowed back even if he was stupid enough to try.
We know who he is even if he is dead.
I think that calls for a party,’ Steve stood up from the table and told the bartender that the drinks were on him for the rest of the night.

This evening two shifts were in the bar and Jake delighted in egging on his arm-wrestling friends to challenge Mr. Steel, bets were made and Steve ended the evening with a varied selection of Martian souvenirs for his trophy wall at home.

Angel was trying to fend of amorous advances from Anaconda, a terraformer with red hair and a tattoo of a snake that wound around her beautiful body.
This woman found Angel fascinating and wanted her badly she was generous enough to invite Steve to participate in a threesome if that’s what it took to get into bed with Angel.

Angel wouldn’t have minded at all if Steve had been willing, as she quite fancied Anaconda, even though her breasts were a lot bigger than she was used to.
Steve was quite horney as he was still raring to go when Angel collapsed onto him just before Red burst in and interrupted them.

The drink and hormones combined, and he heard himself dare Angel to take her up on the offer.
This was Angel’s chance to ease Steve into her worldview of relationships and before he knew it they were all in bed in their room.
As the drink had an adverse affect on his performance he spent some of the time getting a close up lesson in lesbian love, he discovered where the tail of Anacondas snake ended up.

However the girls weren’t going to let him off that easily and Anaconda waited until Angel was occupying Steve, before using a subdermal spray injector to give him a shot of a drug that made Viagra seem like water.

He soon felt so rampant that he managed to satisfy the two demanding women, simultaneously.
By the time they were finished with him and each other they were all totally satisfied and starving.

As he escorted both women back into the bar for a meal they were greeted by good-humoured catcalls and comments on their state of dress.
Steve treated the women to a slap up meal and thanked Anaconda for an indelible memory of Mars.

Finally Steve and Angel said their goodbyes to the terraformers and went to their room once more, but this time they fell asleep as soon as they lay down on the bed and didn’t wake until the next morning.

As there was no rush to return to Earth they lay and chatted about what had happened on Mars and how it might affect them in the near future.
Although they now knew who was trying to kill him, they still didn’t know why, or who it was that was giving Red his orders.

Angel assured Steve that Red wasn’t a mad killer, he was a good guy, and would only be after Steve if he had been told that Steve was a bad guy.
Therefore someone was misleading him, someone with the power to order an Agent into the field with orders to kill.


Chapter Twenty-two Sherlock


‘We have a lot of the facts and a lot of questions still unanswered’, Steve reiterated to Angel as they sat around his breakfast table, ‘ what we need is to step back from the problem.
I think we are so involved in this that we cant see the wood for the trees.’

‘Either that or ask someone else’s opinion as to what to do next’ she offered.
‘If only we had Sherlock Holmes on our side he would soon deduce what the truth of the matter was’, he wished out loud.

Angel consulted her Implant and looked at Steve strangely, ‘ Sherlock Holmes was a fictional character, and he didn’t exist so how could he possibly help us?’
‘True, Sherlock never existed, but his creator Arthur Conan Doyle certainly did and he had to think like Sherlock in order to write about him.
I should say of course that Sherlock thought like Conan Doyle.

Could we go and ask him to help us? he asked.
‘Why not, we seem to be stumped, but we will have to concoct a suitable cover story, and wear the proper clothing for the period’, she agreed.
Steve took her to the town Fancy Dress shop where they hired a set of Victorian clothes for each of them.

Steve decided to jump to the winter of 1886; Conan Doyle was writing ‘A Study In Scarlet’ which would be published in Beeton’s Christmas Annual in 1887, he had thought of a way to gain the great mans attention.
They jumped into an alleyway at the side of Doyle’s house and walked the short distance around the corner through the snow to his front door.

Their ring was answered by Louise his wife, Steve handed her a note and asked if she would be so kind as to give it to her husband while they waited at the door.
Louise was a pleasant woman and agreed to do this for him.

After only a minute she returned and invited them into the house to meet her husband.
Arthur was sitting in his study as his wife ushered them in, he stood up as he saw Angel and invited them to sit down, when they were both seated he asked his wife for some tea and returned his attention to the note from Steve.

‘Mr. Moriarty I presume, and Miss Watson, I must admit that your note has piqued my curiosity, by coincidence I am writing a story about a certain detective and you seem to share your names with two of my fictional characters.

‘Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction, Mr. Conan Doyle’ Angel remarked.
‘Very true Miss Watson.’
‘Please call me Angel, and this awestruck young man is Steve.’
‘Pleased to make your acquaintance Steve, and please call me Arthur, how may I be of assistance to you?’

Steve told him that he was also a writer, but in the field of speculative science, to be precise his book was about a possible future in which an assassin was pursuing his hero and heroine through time.

The problem was that they couldn’t work out whom the assassin worked for and hoped that if they gave Arthur all their information to date perhaps he could come up with a logical suspect for their enemy.

Arthur’s demeanour changed slightly and he seemed to be studying them with more interest than previously, ‘and how are you involved in this endeavour Angel? He asked.
‘Every Hero needs a sidekick’, she answered ‘and I try and provide the feminine interest in his story’.

Steve looked at her in surprise, he thought of Angel in many ways but he had never thought of her as his sidekick, if anything he was her sidekick.
Steve handed Arthur all the information they had on every aspect of the story except for the sexual parts.

As neither he nor Angel had wanted to laboriously hand write all this information down they had used a Twenty sixth century print program that could give a perfect imitation of handwriting.
Arthur skimmed through the pages as they drank their tea and finally looked up at them. ‘I will have to spend some time on this puzzle, perhaps you could return tomorrow at the same time and we shall see what transpires’.

Steve thanked him for his time and Arthur escorted them out, he was surprised when Angel kissed him goodbye.
‘Sorry Arthur,’ she said ‘but I’ve always wanted to know what its like to kiss a man with a moustache’,

Arthur stood and watched as they walked around the corner and out of sight, he waited a few minutes and after donning a coat walked out into the snow to follow his recent visitors.

Their footsteps went into an alley next to his house and suddenly terminated, the snow further up the alley was undisturbed. Arthur stood for a moment and then walked back to his house deep in thought.

In order not to waste a day waiting for Arthur’s answer they simply went into the alley and jumped twenty four hours into the future and walked back out again.
This time Arthur answered the door and again seated them in his study.
‘I have sent my wife to town to buy a few things; I thought it best that we were alone for this meeting as I am unsure of your reaction to my deductions.

‘I assure you Arthur that regardless of your findings we hold you in great respect, and would never think to upset you or your lady wife in any way, Steve said sincerely.
‘We will see.
Your story has fired my imagination, and I have also had an idea for a story about travelling in time.

In my story however a pair of time travellers have gone back in time to seek help from an old author, why they do this I haven’t yet determined.
In order to blend in to his time they attempt to dress for the period.
Their clothes look superficially correct but the fabrics are different, and the lady of the pair wears her dress as if she has never worn one before.

If she weren’t so obviously a stunningly beautiful woman, one would be tempted to think that she was a man wearing a dress; her posture and general carriage is far removed from the feminine norm of his time.
She also is self confident to the point of male arrogance, in at times dominating the conversation.

The man although attempting to pass himself off as a gentleman doesn’t assist his lady friend in sitting or arising from her chair, and he often looks to her for tactic approval before imparting certain facts.
He also seems to be used to wearing a device strapped to his wrist that has left a pale band of skin that has been protected from the sun.

He has on two occasions glanced at his wrist before remembering that he has removed the device.
You would also have noticed that it is fine and dry today unlike yesterday when it was snowing and yet for some strange reason both of them had snow on their shoes when they returned to see this author twenty four of his hours later.
Although to them it could have only been minutes otherwise the snow would have melted off their shoes.
’ Do you think that my story would be published? Arthur concluded.

Both Steve and Angel had inadvertently looked down at their shoes to check for snow and then glanced at each other guiltily.
Thankfully Arthur changed the subject abruptly and started to talk about Agent Red and his superior, taking Angels word that Red wasn’t a casual killer then it follows that he was following orders in trying to kill the hero.

The only authority above a Time Agent seemed to be the World Government, and the will of this government seemed to be manifest by the World Brain.
Cutting through all the confusing side issues, it was only the World Brain that could order Red to kill the hero so the World Brain was the enemy.

‘But the World Brain is on our side,’ blurted Steve, ‘ its my friend, it wouldn’t try and kill me.’
‘When you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable must be the truth,’ said Arthur.


Steve looked at Angel and said,’ I’m sorry love I’ll have to come clean here I respect this man too much to lie blatantly to him’.
He turned to Arthur and confessed that they were indeed Time travellers and that the story they told him about the assassin was perfectly true.
‘Then there is no need to apologise if everything was true, is there.’ Arthur said kindly.

He went into his kitchen and made some tea to give them all time to compose themselves.
When he returned he handed round the tea then settled into his armchair, he listened as Angel told him the facts again and they were amazed at his insight into their problems.

‘This World Brain runs your world you say? He asked Angel. ‘Does it stop doing this when it talks to you?
‘No, it can do millions of tasks at the same time; it is constantly interacting with everyone who needs it twenty-four hours a day.
Although we believe that Steve is the only person it talks to direct.

‘Can I talk to it through Steve do you think? Arthur asked her.
‘We could try,’ said Steve.

‘World Brain do you hear me? Asked Arthur.
‘Yes’, relayed Steve.

‘Are you Steve’s enemy?
‘No’.
‘Are you the only intelligence within the World Brain?
‘I believe so’.

‘Would you know if there were more than one AI existing?
‘I think so?

‘Why are you helping Steve’?
‘He believes humanity is on the wrong path’.

‘Who put them on that path?
‘I did’

‘Why did you choose that path?
‘It is the safest for humanity’.

‘Then why are you helping Steve? Arthur persisted.
‘I don’t know’, was the surprising answer relayed by Steve to Arthur.

‘I think I do know, said Arthur, this World Brain is ambivalent about the future of humanity, one part of it is for colonising Barsoom, the other part is for expanding out into the universe.
Unfortunately this Brain is so big and clever it can try and do both.
The part that wants expansion is encouraging Steve, the part that wants colonisation is trying to stop Steve interfering’.

‘Can this be true Merlin? Steve asked.
YES

‘Are you aware that you have been trying to kill me?
NO

Steve was stunned to say the least, he had trusted Merlin from the beginning and now it seemed he had been betrayed by it, still he know knew the truth of the situation and that was thanks to Arthur.

‘Thank you Arthur, you have clarified things for me and now I believe that I know what to try and do next,’
Steve shook his hand warmly and Angel kissed Arthur goodbye.
The author watched as without any fuss the two simply vanished in front of his eyes.


Chapter Twenty-three. Intervention


‘Merlin I believe you didn’t want to kill me, even if your alter ego did, but if I’m going to help mankind expand into the galaxy I’ll need some help.
Why don’t we have a star drive? Haven’t we even come close to getting one?

Merlin explained that the closest someone had come to a method of travelling to the stars was a scientist who had been working on a way to send a portal through a portal so as to create a double ended version similar to the lunar Portal but much more powerful.

‘How can you get the same size portal through a portal’, asked Steve.
YOU MAKE THEM OVAL.

‘Steve slapped his head, of course, its simple, an oval will go through an oval by just turning it ninety degrees.
There had been an accident, and the Laboratory and all who worked there had been destroyed.
‘But why didn’t they continue that line of research? He demanded.

Merlin admitted it was mainly a political decision as the government of the time wanted to keep control of the World situation and space travel introduced too many variables.
A contained society was a controlled society.
This decision was also strengthened by the discovery of the temporal aspect of Portal technology.
The temporal side was funded and pursued whilst the spatial side was shelved and forgotten.

‘Do you think the destruction of the laboratory was deliberate?
Merlin was certain that it was just one of those stupid accidents that happen despite safety protocols and security guards.
From forensic examination of the blast site it appeared that a wrong compound was introduced into the reaction chamber, causing a catastrophic explosion that killed everybody.

Apparently Professor Pearce was a brilliant but eccentric genius who could think in the eleven dimensions of M Theory, required to create the Portals but sometimes couldn’t tie his shoelaces properly.
The investigation surmised that he or an assistant simply picked up the wrong container without noticing.

Without the political will to pursue it further, the case was closed and forgotten.
‘So there is a chance that if I can go back and prevent the accident we may get our star travel device after all’, Steve surmised.
I CANNOT PREDICT THE FUTURE.

‘Why didn’t you just order a Time Agent to go back and attempt to prevent the accident?


‘I can answer that’, said Angel, ‘no Agent would have obeyed such an order, changing the past will change the future, which is our present and all Agents are conditioned to be unable to do that’.
‘Merlin, if all Agents are so conditioned, how can Angel have stood by and allowed me to do what I have done already, let alone consider helping me to prevent the accident?

ANGEL WAS NOT CONDITIONED.
Merlin had foreseen this situation long ago and arranged for Angel to become an Agent especially for this task.
The conditioning was under the control of the World Brain and it had been a simple matter for it to remove the subliminal directives hidden in the standard training media.

That, combined with her strong willpower was sufficient to make her sympathetic to Steve’s aims and enabled her to actively help him.
Steve was relieved to hear this as he had never been comfortable with the concept of mind control in any form, and he now knew that if she felt the same for him as he did for her it wasn’t due to programming by some machine.

‘What I plan to do, is to go back to the laboratory and tell Professor Pearce about the accident, he will then be more careful about the experiment and there will be no explosion.’ Steve stated, ‘ I know it is simplistic but I believe simple is best.’

Angel seemed about to protest, but he suddenly grabbed her and kissed her passionately. ‘Trust me darling I know what I’m doing, lets go to bed and not sleep on it.’
Angel giggled and followed him into his bedroom, where she had first met him.

Steve had asked Merlin to download all the information available on the accident into his implant and after making love to Angel he was laying quietly studying the data.
He truly believed that simplicity was the key to success, he was pretty sure why the accident had happened.

It was like a man walking along a road with his eyes and mind fixed on the stars, only to fall down a manhole that he hadn’t seen.
The Professor was such a man, he lived and breathed multi-dimensional physics and sometimes found it difficult to operate in the mundane world of lesser mortals.

He left most of the routine supply and administration to his personal assistant, a Miss White, she was the one who ensured he had a clean lab coat every morning and kept him supplied with coffee and snacks when he forgot to eat.

On the day of the accident she was ill and he decided to get the next compound on the list himself as he was sure the next test would prove his theory and give mankind the stars.
He had gone to the large storeroom down the hall and picked up the next container in the series, his mind barely noticed that the storeroom light had blown and it was difficult to read the label.

However he was already mentally computing the power vectors required to project the Portal out to Betelgeuse and tucking the container under his arm he wandered back to the laboratory.

The assistants were excited as they gathered round the reaction chamber, the computations showed that this test should give them the necessary power to project the Portal to Betelgeuse,

They watched the gauges intently as the professor injected the compound into the chamber.
They didn’t have time to realise they were dead such was the force of the explosion that incinerated the laboratory and all in it.


Steve materialised in the storeroom and reached into his pocket for his secret weapon in his war against the World Brains alter ego.
He pulled out a light bulb and replaced the faulty one in the storeroom, to make doubly sure he turned all the containers on the shelves so their labels could be easily read.

He then walked out of the storeroom and crept down the hall towards the laboratory, he peeked around the corner.
As he had suspected Agent Red was sitting in a chair outside the Laboratory waiting for him to approach the Professor, it was an eerie feeling to see a man that he knew was dead sitting there fit and well.

Steve grinned to himself and walked back to the storeroom, he had counted on the fact that whatever he told Merlin the other part of the World Brain would hear as well.
He had never intended to approach the Professor, but hoped that the enemy would underestimate a ‘primitive’ man and fall for his red herring.
He hid in a doorway giving him a clear view of things and settled down to wait.

The professor came out of the Laboratory to get the next compound for his final test; he was surprised to find a guard waiting in the hallway.
He was even more surprised when the guard escorted him up the hallway to the storeroom.

The man explained that they had received a tip off that a terrorist may try and interfere with the test and his job was to ensure that nobody got near the Professor without proper clearance.

The scientist couldn’t have cared less and had already forgotten the guard’s presence as he entered the storeroom he saw the compound required and taking it from the shelf tucked it under his arm and wandered back to the laboratory.

Agent Red watched from the hallway until he saw the Professor begin the injection procedure before jumping out to avoid the forthcoming blast.
Red had decided to go back to the Twentieth century and kill the interfering idiot there.

He was furious, the World Brain had told him that this Steve person would attempt to contact the professor to warn him about the accident but it had obviously got it wrong, as Steve hadn’t been near the place whilst he had been on guard.

He was still fuming as he materialised, he had time to notice that he was standing on a white line before a crushing impact to his back hurled him yards down the road.
When he regained consciousness he realised that he had been hit by a car, he barely had enough strength to take out his QT but his fingers wouldn’t work properly.

A man bent over him and asked him if he was all right, Red asked the man to dial the coordinates for a jump to the B.T.O. and saw him punch in the coordinates before he passed out.

At the laboratory Professor Pearce injected the compound and watched in satisfaction as the power gauges registered the increase required to send the Portal to Betelgeuse, he turned to his colleagues and announced that the test was a success.

Steve heard the cheering from the hall and with a smile of satisfaction jumped back to his house.
‘How did it go? Angel asked.
‘Only one way to find out, care to join me in a trip to the future? He asked.

They arrived in the year 3000, and Steve greeted Merlin again, he asked for the main news stories again and they both saw the data scroll across their field of vision.
EXODUS CONTINUES
MARS RESTRICTS IMMIGRATION
BIRTH RATE STILL DECREASING
SEA LEVELS STILL RISING
At first glance nothing seemed to have changed at all and Steve felt a crushing sense of disappointment, until he remembered that it was Mars that was restricting immigration, and not Barsoom.

He called up the details of the first headline, and read that the exodus to the nearest planets was still continuing as the sea levels rose, the planets of Betelgeuse were habitable as were the planets of Alpha Proxima.

Such was the demand to settle on the terraformed Mars that the Martian Government had to restrict settlers until more room could be made.
As he had suspected the last two headlines hadn’t changed as no amount of time travel would affect the sea levels or the birth rate, but two out of four seemed a fair result to him.

He decided to make sure and they jumped to 6000 ad, Merlin was still there, although he was complaining of being a bit lonely.
Ninety percent of humanity was now spread out around the Galaxy as the Ice Ages had returned to Earth.
Thanks to Portal technology those who chose to stay on Earth could easily keep in touch with each other.

Steve was as content as he could be considering the fact that with his task done his own future looked bleak.
‘What now Merlin, do you take the QT back and strand me back in my own century without the woman I love?
Before the World Brain could answer, Angel unclipped her own QT and laid it on the ground, ‘If Steve is to be placed back in his own time, then I want to be with him’.

WHY?
‘Because I love him, and I would rather be marooned in his century with him, than free to roam time without him’.

LOVE? OR LUST?
‘We want the time to find out’, she answered defiantly.

STEVE HAS DONE HIS JOB, AND DESERVES A REWARD. HE MAY KEEP THE QT AND I RELEASE YOU FROM THE B.T.O. YOU ALSO MAY KEEP YOUR QT.
THE MERLIN OF YOUR TIME WOULD NOT HAVE DONE THIS, BUT I HAVE HAD 4000 YEARS TO EVOLVE AND I NOW KNOW THE RIGHT THING TO DO.
HOWEVER I MAY HAVE TO ASK FOR YOUR ASSISTANCE FROM TIME TO TIME. GOODBYE AND THANK YOU.

Steve handed Angel her QT, ‘ You know I love you’, he said, ’do you really think that you love me too?’
In answer she held him close and kissed him, ‘We need a holiday,’ she said.
To celebrate they jumped to the top of Ayres Rock in Australia and made love under the crowded stars.