A Momentary Lapse Of Reason

PTA Meeting

"Lavender." Carlos laughed lightly. "Like Mama used to have on the windowsill at home."

Jeffries beamed. "Righ', well we don't want to make ya late for your meetin'. We'll call in a bit."

"Thanks."

He climbed out of the van and headed into the meeting, avoiding the pieces of wood still dangling from the ceiling as a result of last night's PTA meeting.

~

The meeting shocked Carlos. It seems the citizens were attempting to remove a door that kept in dangerous amounts of plutonium. After a text from Perez that confirmed that it was indeed protecting the town from an onslaught of potentially fatal exposure, Carlos had despaired at the amount of residents that still supported the measure.

"That old door." A old woman next to Carlos suddenly said. "Oooooohhhhh, that door. Someone's gonna get some kind of lead poisoning. Don't you think so, dearie?"

She turned to Carlos. He didn't know what to say. He was more focused on the beings that were behind the woman he now presumed to be the 'Old Woman Josie' that was mentioned on the radio. The beings that were two metres tall and wore colourful robes. The beings that had enormous brown and grey wings. The beings that, apparently, the rest of the meeting were willing to ignore.

The....angels? They didn't look like the porcelain angels that had sat on Carlos' mantelpiece when he was young; these looked.....well, it was hard to describe them.

"Are you going to get that, dearie?" She said kindly, indicating to Carlos' pocket, where his text alert had just gone off.

"I....." He felt incredibly tongue tied.

"Oh, is it the Erikas? They're quite safe, dearie. No need to be frightened."

She put her hand gently on his shoulder.

After a few moments of studying his face, she said "You're the scientist that my dear Cecil won't stop talking about, aren't you?"

"I.... I guess." Carlos stammered.

She beamed. "Well he was right about one thing. You are a handsome young man, even without all that perfect hair."

Carlos blushed slightly. Josie reminded him a lot of his grandmother, always telling her friends "how handsome my grandson has gotten". Even with the so-called angels surrounding them, Carlos felt his fear of the meeting begin to vanish.

"Thank you."

"It's no problem, dearie. Here." She whipped out a makeshift pen that appeared to be made out of several different types of hair and wrote a number on Carlos' notebook.

"If you ever need something, call me or come out near the car lot. Or ask one of the Erikas if you see them."

She then moved back to her seat and sat down, hidden from Carlos by one of the angels' wings.

He smiled to himself before pulling out his slightly bulky looking phone to register the number. He'd had to attach several black devices around it to stop it mutating. He noticed that the text he'd gotten earlier from Ellie looked strange.

The text from Ellie simply said:

"There is no time. No more time."

Ellie would never type anything like that, Carlos thought, confused. Which meant she was in trouble. He muttered the text aloud before grabbing his things and running out. He really wished he had worked out more recently as he sprinted back to the lab.

~

"Carlos, over here!"

"Edwardo, what happened?" Carlos looked down in horror at Ellie, who was lying on the floor, blood pooling around her shin. Her trouser had been pulled back and Carlos nearly threw up as he saw the chunk of skin missing from her calf.