Mornington had been sitting around in his hotel, feet up on the table having another Chrvas regal and musing over what kindof mayhem Emerson and Malus was getting himself into when the clock chimed half past the hour. It was 3:30pm
“ohhhhhhh! that strange meeting!”
He walked over to City Hall, past the dinosaur museum which had been causing mayhem for most of last week and sat in the hall with other folks who was interested in what was happening. Over the course of the meeting young Tepic ran in from the front doors shouting about a “wobbly thing in the sky”. It was at this point that Mornington started to get a strange feeling in deep in his gut, a feeling that something has went…wrong.
Sure enough, when he walked outside there was a massive vortex, a rip large enough in the space-time fabric of space to allow a ship to pass through…and one did.
The old man who appared was quite distressed, a large group of people ranging from The Mayor to urchins like young Tepic had gathered around the old man and his ship. The old man started talking incoherently to The Mayor, and passed him a small black box. The ship then took off, flew around the side of the City Hall…and exploded, destroying the ship and more than likley killing the occupant.
The mayor unpacked the small black box, and a large, well engineered automaton appeared, holding a quill, and writing on pages of an empty book. The story that the automaton had started to write was about events and people in New Babbage, the difference was, these events had not happened yet, and the first page of this tale ended with the city being engulfed in flames with part of the story being told by young Myrtil. It was the beginning of this ‘End of New Babbage’ tale which made that strage feeling in Mornington gut, turn into a churning gnawing feeling that something has happened in the past 15 minutes.
After looking at the automaton and explaining to some of the folks in laymans terms what might have just happened, Mornington went back to the hotel and poured himself a double chivas, neat, with no ice.
He was halfway through his first glass when Charlie Wilson, Vic’s ‘go to man’ appeared.
“So Mornington, has that lot arrived yet?”
Vic knew who he was talking about, the high council of timelords always kept an eye on the timestream of New Babbage since so many timelords either lived, or visited this citys timelocked era.
“Strangley enough Charlie, nope, not a sign of them…which is strange, they always appear at the end of something i done to slap my wrists but..nothing.”
“Your shipment of Montecristos didn’t arrive today either”
Vic looked at Charlie…
“Now that is weird…old professor xan is always on time with those”
Charlie slid back into the shadows and Vic continued on with his Chivas, trying to ignore that same sinking feeling he has been experiencing all day.
Avariel Falcon looked at the readout from the analytical engine…
“Thats not right… not right at all… Unit #10! Increase the power!”.
With a low rumble the Clockhaven Power Station generators came to speed…
“Unit #16! Open the gateway to destination #103437!”
With a buzz like the sound of a million angry bees the portal generator screamed into life…
And nothing happened…