"Yeah, I /told/ you so." 

True, true. But we're not through with the story by a longshot, you know. There's a heckuvalot more to go before we call your idea a success. For one thing, we haven't even linked the Alron/Inralion story with the timetravel bit yet. 

"Don't worry. It'll work, I tell you."

I know, I know; so you keep saying. 

"It's true! They'll figure it out when we get to it."

Do you think they will /remember/ Alron and Inralion by the time we get to them? 

"Well, they will /now/."

Good point. 

"Hey, excuse me? Could we get back to the story now?" interrupted Lora, standing next to him in the cold alley, just as a 1975 Ford Prefect honked at them to get out of its way. They quickly stepped to the side of the alley and the car drove past. 

"I guess we can take that as a yes," said Edison, walking with Lora out onto the sidewalk. No cars were coming. They walked across the street and into the door of the Horse and Groom. 

"Ow!" exclaimed Edison. He had forgotten that this was a time before all doors opened automatically. Rubbing his nose with his left hand, he found the door handle with his right and he and Lora walked in. 

The pub was filled with its usual lunchtime crowd of bored businessmen taking other bored businessmen out to their usual lunchtime pub. A barman stood behind the counter and a waitress carried drinks and small sandwiches to the customers. It was Thursday. The dull smalltalk was about the cricket match -- or, rather, mismatch, as Arsenal, according to the depressed insistance of a man at the bar, didn't have a chance -- that was to be played that afternoon. Nobody thought much about the dozen or so oddishly dressed new arrivals who seated themselves in small groups about the room.

"Over here," said Lora. She walked to the right where there were two empty seats at a large table. The autumnal equinox sunlight was refracted through the stained glass window as if to indicate that a crystal ball was there, catching older gamers Dennis, Tommy, James, John, and Chuck in the act of spying on the other customers. The curious light created the miraculous grand illusion that the tips of the forks were serpentine and the tops of the spoons were pieces of eight. Lora and Edison sat down on the soft cushioned wood chairs. 

"Find Joseph yet?" asked Lora of Chuck, the closest. 

"No sign of him, not yet, sorry." 

"Yeah," added John, to his left. "Nobody here's named Joseph that we've been able to figure. Roy's up at the counter. He's gonna try to get info from the bartender." 

"Shouldn't we be split into pairs?" asked Edison. 

"Not necessarily," replied Lora. 

"I dunno. Us guys just wanted to get something to start with before we got all split up. Didn't think it mattered all that much," John commented. 

"Besides, we wanted to get some food!" exclaimed Chuck. 

The group was indeed munching on various sandwiches. 

"Hey, how are you gonna pay for this?" demanded Edison. 

"I found a bunch of old money in a drawer of Elaine's desk when everybody was walking out," Chuck explained. 

"Erkonn supplied the games complete with props," Lora added. 

"They think of everything, don't they?" said Edison. 

"Not everything." 

"What do you mean?" 

"Nothing," she said innocently. 

Two men in their late twenties walked into the bar and talked to the barman. 

"They're the first ones to come in yet," whispered John. "Maybe one of them's Joe." 

"Hope Roy's listening to their conversation," murmured Edison. 

Roy was indeed listening. Unfortunately, Roy was drinking, too. Too much.

The barman breathed in heavily. "There you are, sir, six pints," he said.

The man who had just walked in sitting farther from Roy smiled wanly at the barman and shrugged. Then he turned and smiled wanly at the rest of the pub.

Edison, Lora, Dennis, Tommy, James, John, Chuck, and the other gamers and customers couldn't understand what he was smiling at them for. Neither could Roy, but he was getting too drunk to understand much of anything, so he decided that that just about explained it. But not quite. The solution to his confusion, he decided, was to drink some more. Then it would make perfect sense. But Chuck hadn't given him enough money for any more. He looked at the two men with the six pints and grinned a drunk hopeful grin at them. 

"Get off," said the man sitting next to him, "they're ours," giving him a look that made him think that if he were an Algolian Suntiger, whatever that was, he would get on with what he was doing. Roy wished he could get on with what he was doing, but he couldn't afford to. So he stood up with some difficulty and carefully wobbled all the way back to the table. 

"Gosh, guys, you dint have to move all the way out to the sticks, did yah?" he demanded, while John grabbed his arm to steady him. 

"I'm gonna kill Roy," Chuck whispered to Edison and Lora, making hand motions of strangling and slapping, "One, two!"

"What are they talking about up there," asked John, "and why did they smile at us like that?"

"Not much, not much, not really, just th-the guy said something about there's no point to the match today Ôcause the world's gonna end and then they ordered six somethings of bitter and wouldn't give me any. Hey, can I have some more money Chuck?" 

"Here, take it. Get some coffee or something." 

Roy wandered back up to the bar. There was a rumbling crash from outside, and within moments one of the men got up and ran out. The table of gamers saw the other one talk to Roy and the bartender for a minute and then run out. The bartender cleared his throught somewhat nervously and announced, "Last orders, please."

"This place is very familiar," Edison said to Lora. 

"It should be," she replied. 

"Why?" 

After a few seconds of careful thought, she told him. 

Outside, several blocks away, Brad and Melissa stood under a tree, holding hands. The tree was one of a few dozen that lived in a vacant lot near the edge of the village. It was like a small forest, beautiful except for an eyesore of a house that was only partially obstructed from their view by trees. But the house was being knocked down while they stood there. Soon the scenery would be perfect. The rumbling of the bulldozers wasn't quite loud enough to make it difficult for Melissa and Brad to hear each other, so they were stealing a few minutes to get to know each other. 

"Are you kidding? I /love/ that song!" she exclaimed. 

"Whoa, really?" 

"Yeah! That's like one of my favorites." 

"It's one of mine."

They became quiet, just looking at each other, and squeezing each other's hands. A chilly breeze began to blow. 

"I'm cold!" she said.

"Let's see if we can do something about that, shall we?" 

"Sure," she smiled. And they hugged. And hugged. And hugged. For warmth, you see. Then they kissed.

VVVSSSHHHHOOM! Their eardrums practically exploded. Something huge and yellow was tearing across the heavens, followed by a few others, only louder. He pulled away from her and ran a few feet to the sidewalk. She slowly followed him. He looked to his right. The house was a pile of rubble. He looked to his left. Two men were running toward him. One was shouting something that didn't sound very polite. He looked up. Unbelievably huge, loud, yellow... somethings were tearing the sky to pieces.

The shouting man tripped and fell and pointed to the sky, shreiking "What the hell's that?" 

The other man ran near him and just stood there, masses of screaming people forming all around him. Only he and Brad remained standing still while the world panicked. And then Brad saw seven gamers running behind the man, shouting "Brad! He's gonna throw away the script! Get the script! CATCH THE SCRIPT!"

Now Brad was running too, running toward the stranger, who was reaching into a satchel, pulling out some papers held together by little brass paper fasteners. 

As the sky was filled with lights and noise and the streets were filled with running people and noise and screeching cars going nowhere and the seven shouting his name, Brad ran, jumped, shouted "Hey, over here!" and stretched his arms out in front of him. 

The calm stranger took the scripts to "Godspell" and "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat" from his satchel and threw them away. 

Brad caught them, put two and two together, tossed "Godspell," pulled the small black cube with the smaller red button from his pocket, put his left arm around Melissa's back, shouted "Thank you, Ford!" over the chaos and quietly vanished.