by Annie Dalton
These days, when we need to unwind, we head straight for the Ambrosia district and dance ourselves silly at the Babylon Cafe. It only opened a few weeks ago, and already it’s the coolest club in town.
We’d just checked in our jackets when Reuben turned up.
“I don’t suppose you’re up to dancing,” he teased Lola. “Now you’re such an old lady!”
“Hey, buddy, I can dance you off your feet any time!” And Lola dragged him on to the dance floor.
I hadn’t seen Reuben dance since his run-in with Brice, the cosmic outlaw. It was great to see him behaving like his old party-animal self.
After several dances, we went outside to cool off. The gardens at the Babylon are unbelievably lovely, designed so that they literally seem to float in mid-air. We found a private little arbour, all overgrown with passion flower vines, and sat sipping ice-cold fruit punch, gazing up at the glittering fields of stars overhead.
For some reason I started thinking about Stephen. What was it Dominic had said? Before Stephen came along these kids were like dumb animals, blindly following orders, half asleep…
Lola suddenly blew out her breath with relief. “Oh, finally!! I’ve been going nuts trying to think where I’d seen them!”
I shook my head. “I’ve absolutely no idea what you’re on about, babe.”
“Those weird FX of course,” she said as if this was obvious.
I gawped at her. “You’ve seriously seen them before! Do you know where?”
“Sure! On the news!”
I couldn’t believe my ears. “You mean in your time?”
“Approximately six months before I got shot,” said Lola calmly. “My grandmother was just about to dish up her famous chicken fajitas. My brothers were fighting over the TV remote as usual. My grandmother said to cut it out. She wanted to watch a current affairs programme. She switched channels and there was Bernard de Winter talking about how time-travel was finally—”
“De Winter?” I interrupted excitedly. “That is so bizarre. I never even heard that name before today and now it’s cropping up all over the place. That dodgy merchant was called something de Winter, and it’s Dom’s surname too.”
Lola’s eyes widened. “Are you sure?”
I nodded. “One of the other kids definitely called him de Winter.”
“So what was your de Winter saying, Lollie?” asked Reuben.
“That I can’t tell you,” she said regretfully. “I shared my house with five hungry brothers, remember, and I was panicking I’d miss out on Gran’s fajitas! I just remember glancing at the TV with my mouth full, and seeing those exact FX. And I remember my grandmother saying this guy was one scientist who actually cared about our planet’s future.”
“Did he?” asked Reuben.
Lola nodded vigorously. “He was definitely one of my century’s good guys -which is pretty amazing considering the rest of his family.”
“I don’t get you,” I said.
“You seriously haven’t heard of them!” Lola sounded amazed. “The de Winters have been creating mayhem since human history began. Of course, they don’t always use that name,” she added darkly.
I gave a nervous laugh. “You make them sound like the PODS.”
Lola took a sip of her punch. “Trust me, the de Winters are like the PODS’ special best friends on Earth. They’re total gangsters. So when they got wind of this device, they went flat out to get the…” She frowned. “What’s that thing that means an invention legally belongs to you?”
“The patent?” I suggested.
“Right, they wanted to get hold of the patent for themselves. There was a major court case. The authorities finally ruled that the time device could lead to dangerous cosmic repercussions, so the court had it destroyed, plus all the relevant computer files were deleted.”
“Yeah, but they weren’t, were they!” Our ice cubes tinkled madly as Reuben jumped up from the table. His face was blazing with excitement. “OK, maybe they destroyed the device, but someone obviously kept copies of the research.”
I gasped. “Someone’s like, reinvented the device!”
“But how did those kids get hold of it?” breathed Lola.
“Good question,” said Reuben. “But we’d better get down to the Agency ASAP and tell Michael.”
“Sorry to interrupt, you guys.” Amber had unexpectedly appeared. “Michael wants to see you. He says it’s urgent!”
Chapter Six
Maybe we should just move our beds down here,” I complained as we flashed our IDs. “It would make things a whole lot simpler.”
“This is my weirdest birthday ever,” sighed Lola. “I can’t believe I never even got to open your present, Boo.”
We jumped into the lift and went zooming up past various brilliantly lit floors with Lola still moaning on about her present. “Mo probably left it on the beach. I’ll never get it now. Won’t you just give me a tiny little clue what was inside?”
“No chance,” I told her.
We sped along the maze of gleaming corridors. Michael’s door stood open. A blaze of diamond-white light poured out. This meant he had at least one archangel visitor.
Uh-oh, I thought. I have this terrible mental block with archangels. (Not counting Michael, who is one of a kind and a total sweetie). I simply can’t tell them apart. For one thing, they generate so much celestial radiance that apart from their eyes, it’s hard to identify any actual features.
I squinted into the light and just made out two dazzling outlines.
“Hi!” I said shyly. “We got your message.”
The light levels instantly grew more bearable, and Michael came sharply into focus. “Come in, come in!” he said warmly.
His visitor gave us a distant nod. It’s not so much that archangels are unfriendly, more that they don’t do small talk.
We perched ourselves on uncomfortable office chairs, waiting for Michael to explain why we’d been summoned to the Agency for the second time that day. His first words made my heart turn over.
“I just spoke to Orlando,” he said.
I swallowed and said, “Oh, really?” an octave higher than I intended. What had Orlando been telling him?
“When you go back to medieval Marseilles tomorrow, your Earth duties will change,” Michael announced with a grave expression.
“Oh, right,” I said bravely, picturing myself scrubbing a huge medieval lavvy with a very small toothbrush.
“Since you were the only agents to witness the illicit time-travellers, this naturally makes you the obvious choice to deal with this anomaly.”
I was stunned. “Orlando told you about that? But he said—”
Michael smiled. “He asked me to apologise for not giving you his full attention. When you reported the anomaly, he was in the middle of a rather sticky discussion with local personnel.”
I was amazed. “So you actually believe us?”
“My dear child,” said the mystery archangel with a sigh. “Do you think we don’t notice when humans go tinkering with cosmic laws?”
“In fact, other agents have detected similar anomalies.” Michael checked his computer screen. “The latest was in ancient Rome.”
“That’s right!” I turned excitedly to Lola. “Lollie, remember that girl saying the gladiators were lush?”
The archangel looked blank. “Lush?”
“It means really fit,” I explained. “Presumably she was into big rippling muscles!” I could feel myself getting seriously flustered and no wonder. I couldn’t believe I was discussing sex with an archangel! It made it worse that I could see Lola trying desperately not to laugh.
Luckily Michael rescued us. “You may find these useful.” He produced three pairs of sunglasses from a drawer and slid them across the desk.
“Oh, cool,” I said.
The archangel sounded tetchy. “These are not fashion accessories, Melanie. They are to help agents detect illicit temporal emanations.”
“Wow! That’s tot
ally incredible,” I breathed.
Michael must have guessed that I had NO idea what his archangel colleague was on about, because he tactfully went on to explain about how each human energy system has to be specially customised, to fit his or her particular slot in time.
“Mr Allbright said something about that!” I said eagerly. “Except for geniuses, he said, who are like, almost always ahead of their times.”
Michael nodded. “That’s true. But even a genius has to share the same time band as her contemporaries. As you know, every time has its different charms and challenges. Its own time ‘weather’ if you like. What you may not have realised, is that this ‘weather’ leaves traces in the human energy field.”
Lola perked up. “So these shades will help us to see auras, is that right?”
I was startled to hear Lola talking about auras as if they were a genuine scientific fact. I’d assumed they were just made up by those dodgy psychics who pretend to get intimate personal info from the dead.
“With practice you’ll see energy emanations quite naturally,” Michael explained. “But for the time being you’ll probably find the glasses helpful.”
Reuben seemed fascinated by his shades, tilting them back and forth, trying to figure out how they worked.
I cleared my throat. “Can I ask something?”
Michael nodded. “Of course.”
“Humans have free will, right? So why did the Agency ban time-travel? If humans have the brains to invent time-travel, why shouldn’t they be able to use it? If I’d had the chance to go time-travelling when I lived on Earth, I’d have gone like a shot, personally!”
“‘Banned’ isn’t quite the word I’d use,” said Michael doubtfully. “But in more primitive eras, yes, time-travel is actively discouraged.”
“But those kids didn’t come from a primitive era,” I objected. “They’re from way in the future.” I remembered how Dom and his fellow time travellers had all that that same inner glow. “They’re almost, well, like angels.”
Reuben looked up from examining his sunglasses. “Mel’s right. It’s almost like they’re evolving into a new kind of human.”
“That’s it, exactly!” Michael sounded delighted that we’d figured this out for ourselves. “And one day, I promise you, humans will freely explore the fields of Time and Space. But not yet.”
“Why?” I argued. “I mean, Dom’s just having a laugh. He’s not doing anything actually evil.”
Fierce white light rippled from the archangel’s energy field. “The child is playing with cosmic fire!” Archangels are incapable of losing their tempers. They’re way too advanced. But his sharp tone made me cringe.
“I don’t think I understand,” I said in a small voice.
The light immediately softened. “Some humans will do anything for money,” the archangel reminded us. “Sell their fellow humans into slavery, rob the Earth of her precious metals, pollute her oceans. For them Time is simply one more resource to pillage.”
Michael explained that unscrupulous humans could conceivably use the device to interfere with historical events, ensuring that certain people inherited land or property or oil wells. “Not to mention scientific discoveries, and priceless art treasures,” he added wearily. “The list is endless…”
“I guess I wasn’t thinking,” I said humbly.
“What makes you think those kids will go back to medieval Marseilles though?” Lola asked.
Michael gave one of his all-seeing smiles. “Let’s just say I have a hunch!”
I don’t know about you, but I always feel heaps more confident when I’m wearing the right clothes. So when I got back to the dorm, I forced myself to keep awake until I’d planned exactly what I was going to wear next day. And like they say in the style magazines, that little bit of extra effort totally paid off. Because when my alarm went off all of two hours later, there was my trouble-shooting outfit all ready for me to jump into.
Actually my new look was pretty cool; Skechers trainers, boot-cut denim flares and a cute hooded top in spicy orange. I quickly twisted the front of my hair into little Zulu knots, letting the rest cascade casually down my shoulders. Then I splashed on some Attitude, grabbed my tote bag and went to find Lola.
It was only just getting light by the time we arrived back at the Agency, but I wasn’t tired. I was buzzing with excitement. Thanks to Orlando, we’d scored a cool new assignment detecting time misfits, and I was determined not to screw up. This was my chance to prove I wasn’t just some little airhead.
“Hey, Reubs,” I said cheerfully, as we stepped into the time portal. “Was that Raphael or Japhiel in with Michael yesterday?”
Lola looked surprised. ” I thought it was Gabriel.”
“No it was Uriel,” said Reuben firmly. “Definitely Uriel.”
I giggled. “They should wear big gold initials on their chests like Superman.”
Lola burst out laughing. “That is so wicked!”
Reuben just said, “Who’s Superman?”
By the time we’d briefed our buddy on Earth’s major superheroes, we were coming into land.
Lola and Reuben put on their Agency sunglasses the absolute instant we stepped on to solid ground,. “Oh wow,” they said simultaneously. “Mel, you’ve got to see this!”
So naturally I put mine on too. “Oh wow,” I breathed.
To think I’d walked around for thirteen years never knowing that I had my own gorgeous wraparound rainbow!
I peered hopefully down at myself through my shades. “So where’s mine?” I said disappointedly. “I mean angels must have massive auras, right?”
“The shades were invented to detect time anomalies,” Reuben reminded me. “Not just so vain little angel girls can play ‘My energy field’s bigger than your energy field’!”
Lola laughed. “Ooooh! He told you, Boo!”
We had a brilliant time, patrolling medieval Marseilles in our Agency shades going, “Oh wow, that one is totally luminous,” and “Check that guy! Is his aura sinister or what!”
After a while I noticed something disturbing. Everyone seemed to be talking about the same thing, a huge Crusader victory in the Holy Land. People were getting really over-excited, almost hysterical.
“Hey, there’s Lucius!” said Lola. “Maybe he knows what’s going on.”
But there was no charming twinkle from Lucius this morning. The Earth angel seemed deeply depressed. “The slavers start zis rumour deliberately,” he sighed. “They think news of a crusader victory will make zese poor children even more desperate to board ze ships.”
“That’s terrible!” I gasped. “Did it work?”
Lucius gave a shrug. “See for yourself.”
I whipped off my shades and without shimmery auras to distract me, immediately noticed what I’d failed to see earlier; kids practically climbing over each other to get to the little rowing boats bobbing alongside the jetty.
A boatman was fending some kids off with an oar. “Go home! Forget about the crusades!” he yelled. “The ships are leaky as sieves. You will drown before you reach Jerusalem.” He obviously wanted to warn the kids off, but daren’t name the slavers openly.
But they took absolutely no notice of his warning. Hyped-up by the false rumours and terrified of missing their one chance of getting to the Holy Land, kids started diving off the dockside and swimming out towards the ships.
I caught sight of the older merchant, shaking his sleek silver hair, as if he didn’t know what today’s youngsters were coming to.
I was so upset that I put my shades back on without thinking. And then I saw them. Seven pulsating energy fields.
“They’re back!” I shrieked. “Michael’s right! Their auras are completely different!”
I whipped my glasses off again and the pulsing lights vanished.
In their place were Dom, his freckled friend and a new bunch of wide-eyed time tourists. “Isn’t this cool?” I heard Dom say. “Isn’t this worth every single penny?”
Dom broke into an infectious grin. “Mingle with the natives of course! And try not to draw too much attention to yourself.”
It was already too late for that. I saw the silver-haired merchant clock these new healthy specimens. And it was like, “Kerching!”
Then something really weird happened. Dom caught the merchant watching and I saw horrified recognition in his eyes. “Don’t look round,” he hissed. “Act like you’ve got somewhere to go and follow me!”
All seven kids sprinted down the nearest alleyway.
The merchant snapped his fingers. Four medieval heavies detached themselves from the crowd without a word and went charging after them.
“I’ll watch the kids,” I gabbled. “You guys get Orlando.” And I went hurtling after them.
This was like the ultimate cosmic chase scene, I thought, as I sprinted down the dark, extremely smelly alley. Medieval heavies chasing illegal time-travellers, hotly pursued by an angel in Zulu knots!
Luckily, I easily overtook both the heavies, and the kids and I managed to put some distance between ourselves and the thugs.
Dom produced the time device, and breathlessly zapped its tiny keypads.The familiar time FX scribbles appeared.
Dom counted under his breath with an agonised expression, as the luminous ropes became a twirling technicolour blur.
The four thugs came limping and panting into view.
“NOW!” screamed Dom, The kids dived simultaneously.
I didn’t think twice.
Behind me someone yelled, “Melanie, no!” But I totally ignored Orlando’s warning. Taking a big breath, I jumped feet first into the future.
Chapter Seven
I was in rushing darkness, lit by fierce stabs of lightning, and filled with strange sounds. Confused snatches of conversation, ferocious battle cries, muffled sobbing, long-lost love songs.
If I’d known Dom’s device was so primitive, I’d never have risked it. Compared to this bone-rattling helter-skelter ride, angelic time-travel was a walk in the park.
At one point I was convinced I was turning inside out. That was just before all my limbs went dead. I couldn’t actually tell if my body was still in one piece, or if I even had a body. I was totally numb.