June 30, 2014. Monday.
Alfonso stepped out of a black jeep with darkened windows holding the gray orb in his hand. He glanced at the rocket, and for a moment the muscles on his face relaxed.
"You did it," said June running out of the house.
"Yes, here you go." Alfonso passed the orb to the sidekick.
June tried his best to look cool, not to show how heavy the thing was. But after the pain pierced his back, he shouted to the closest guard, who had a black eye, "You! Come over here!" Then gave him the orb and added, "Take it to the missile."
Alfonso's eyes followed the beaten guard. He asked, "What did the cops want? Or perhaps the better question would be: how did those fools escape you yesterday?"
"No clue. When I woke up, I found everyone beaten up, lying flat on the ground. They said the time cop did this to them."
"Then perhaps we should get tougher guards. I think I persuaded a powerful group to join us. They should arrive anytime soon. But to be safe, hire more men, add additional security precautions." Alfonso glanced at the pale moon rising in the clear blue sky.
"Okay, boss. Anything else?"
"Yes. Assemble the container for the book."
"It will be done."
"George Bottlemore," With narrow eyes, Alfonso murmured to the moon. "There is no easy way to save the world. I will win and you will lose.."
———
For the whole length of the trip to the train station, George daydreamed, while the two girls chatted about the weather, food, clothes, and other girly stuff. Sally would explain why items or living conditions in the future were superior to those used nowadays, and Sandy would try to contradict. Whenever George woke up, he stared at the dusty landscape through the bus window or listened to the girls talk. From what he heard them speak, he realized that the future was a dark place. People, there had fewer choices than today. There was less variety of items in the shops. The sky was covered in smoke, through which the sun could rarely be seen. People were wearing almost identical clothes, the color, and type of which most of the time depended on their occupation. What struck him the most, was that the assortment of food one could get in the future was scarce. Sally defended this fact saying that everything they consumed was healthy and nutritious.
George spent his thinking time to evaluate the desperate situation they were in. All his life he had been optimistic believed in himself, but during the last weeks his self-confidence began to crumble. Even now, he could imagine himself outwitting guards, escaping dangerous situations, saving his friends. He could picture many situations in his head, but the only and the most important image that would not materialize was him subduing Alfonso. The villain seemed to be prepared, clever and sneaky, almost invincible.
On the outside, George was smiling and laughing, but deep inside he felt troubled. Alfonso was god knows where getting his fingers on the second stone. They came close to succeeding the first time, not because of their skills, but because they were allowed to. Just so that the evil man could prove how miserable George and his team was. The missile, it seemed, neared its completion. What was the backup person from the future Sally believed in so much? Would he suffice?
As they entered the station, George said, "Sally, I got an idea. What if we ask the backup to arrive a few days earlier and help us in the operation yesterday?"
"George, it won't work. I told you that changing the past is difficult, perhaps even impossible."
"Look at Alfonso, he seems to be doing it just fine."
"Well, perhaps he tries harder. Do you think one letter to the future could change it all?"
"If it works we won't need to go to Milltown. That time cop is going to appear in this room from a thin air, won't he? And perhaps, the world will already be saved."
"You're wrong."
Sandy said, "Sally, nothing wrong is going to happen if we tried, right?"
"Yes," Sally replied. "I'm getting in trouble for this anyways. Let's do it his way, so that George would understand."
"Ok then," George rushed towards a cafe with 'Free Internet' sign on its window.
He connected to domains4ever.com and together with the girls they formulated the text on the new sub-page http://timetravelersreadhere.domains4ever.com/totimecopmax:
'Time cop Max Bottlemore, visit George Bottlemore between June 17th and June 23rd on the year 2014, the earlier the better. The world is in danger. We need your help to save it. Come ASAP.' George pressed the 'save' button.
"See, George," Sally said. "Nothing happened, he's not here. As I told you, time is stubborn. It doesn't like to change."
George was not ready to give up. "But you mentioned that in the future it is common to go to the past and catch criminals. It means you can change things. Why wouldn't that Max guy save the world for us yesterday?"
"Don't know why, but things don't work that easily. Typing a few letters will never be enough."
Sandy spoke up, "George, perhaps the crimes in the future are not meant to happen in the first place, and that's why they are easily stopped. The intervention of time cops in the future is natural. Perhaps, the time, as Sally says, does not resist natural intervention."
Sally said, "I did not understand a word you said."
"No problem, it's nothing important." Sandy smiled.
"Ok."
They bought the tickets and went to sit on a bench on the waiting platform. A warm breeze blew George's hair. They fell on his eyes, and once again he returned to his thoughts. Only this time there was something strange going on in his head. He felt as if he had lost control over his mind. He could perceive images from his memory being removed and replaced with the new ones. The memory of the next day after he wrote the first letter to the future was changing, reassembling. He knew that on the first day no one had arrived, no portal opened up in his cellar. There was, of course, a chance that one of the stones might have appeared, but nothing more. A second passed and he was no longer sure if a person or two had not come to visit him back then.
Another second passed and he remembered sitting on the chair, staring at the empty lawn. A man he had never seen before exited the house. The visitor was in his late forty's. The top of his head was shaved so well that George had to narrow his eyes to protect them from the reflected sunlight coming his way. Blue eyes shone above a pointy nose. A black Burt Reynold's mustache stretched and danced above his mouth whenever visitor's thin lips moved. The man wore sleeveless army shirt and shorts. Grenades were stuck on two cross belts. He held a gun with a wide tube the length of his arm.
The man spoke, his tone very serious, "George Bottlemore. You don't know who I am yet, but you called me to save the world. I'm the time cop, Max."
"What the hell?" George replied, his face expression a true definition of surprise.
"I come from a future to save your world from destruction. Is here something wrong? Has someone strange come to this time or escaped?"
"Nothing is wrong."
"Perhaps I came too soon, but you told me to come as early as possible. I will need to stay by your side for the next few days."
"I kind of stated that no accommodation is provided..."
"Kid, you might be in over your head, better—"
The door slammed open and a man wearing a black scuba suit, a ninja mask and an eye-patch walked out of the house. He pointed his two pistols at Max and said in a deep voice, "You can't stop Kerr, Max, no one can. Bottlemore—" he glanced at George—" get in the house. This is between the two of us."
"Listen to what he says," Max added, his eyes set on the intruder with a deadly intent.
A sparrow warbled in the silent background, and Max lifted his gun up. He jumped off from the ground to the side. The projectiles launched from the villain missed and hit George's neighbor's house breaking a window on the second floor. Lying on the shoulder, Max unloaded his weapon in rapid fire mode. A thick laser beam hit the neighboring house on the opposite side. They jumped and rolled, sidestepped and fired, but none of the projectiles hit the intended target. They dodged them with such accuracy that, it seemed, they could read each other's minds. The only objects they hit were the clouds or a random George's neighbor's house. When Max threw a grenade straight at the man in the scuba-suit, it was kicked up and exploded high in the sky.
"You're empty," exclaimed Max.
"So are you."
George held a phone in his hand and stared at the scene through the kitchen windows with his jaw dropped.
Max reached for a clip behind his back, but before he could put his fingers on it, he was jumped by the opponent and taken down into the bushes by Jim's kennel. During the struggle their guns and parts of their sophisticated equipment fell off. They rolled, and shouted, and fought along the left side of George's house, and ended up on the street. Punches hit faces, and the faces hit the pavement. They wrestled like two Olympic champs making fancy moves and throws none of them getting an advantage over another. The sirens of cop cars getting closer did not make them stop.
Even though the both guys looked tough, they were not tough enough to resist multiple taser shots. And after more cop cars arrived, and more taser shots were fired, they ended up jerking on the street. Cuffed, hands behind their backs they were taken away.
This was not the only change that happened in George's memory. He could now remember explaining to his neighbors that he did not know who these guys were, hiding the time travelers' equipment in the cellar, telling the mother that gangsters were having a shoot out on the street that day.
When Sally arrived, he had told her about the men who came the first day and had a duel by his house. She easily identified that it was the great time cop, Max Bottlemore. But when they went to the police station, they did not have enough money to bail him out and George did not let Sally use the force to save him. Instead of waiting a week until he was freed, they decided to take on Alfonso on their own. The memories remained the same from there on.
George said, "Sally, did you feel your memory change?"
"Yes. Max is waiting for us in the Milltown's police station. Isn't he?"
"Yeah."
"Just as I told you, George, nothing changed. It doesn't matter how you write or edit the letter, the result is always going to be the same."
———-
When the train from Milltown arrived, and George saw a dozen of gray people wearing foil clothes, holding dizzaperators in their hands leave the train, he went pale.
One of the creatures shouted a few words in Kakamaquan language.
They fired the transparent projectiles to a lone cat sleeping in the shade of a bench and made her disappear. Shivers went along George's back. There was something different about these creatures from the three he had met in his cellar. The king was kind, Zoop was clever and the queen was egoistic, but the creatures over there, they were hostile.
When George stepped into the train and it started moving, he saw the squad crowd around the city map and point fingers at the edge where Alfonso's mansion was located. It then came to him where Alfonso must have traveled to.
Now the question remained, what was going on in his house, and what had happened to John, Jim, and his mother?