Bad Timing

by Rebecca Levene

  Delater let out a vast amplified roar of rage and spun towards Johnny.

  Just beneath Delater's hipbone, Red spun helplessly along with him. Her feet lost their grip on the silver bone. Her hands were ripped from their grip by the force of the movement. She was ten metres up now. The fall would kill her.

  Gasping, she flung out her arms. Her fingertips connected with something. She pressed them down desperately, forcing them almost into the metal. She felt the horrible snap of nails breaking, and a warm trickle of blood down her arms. But, somehow, she managed to cling on, hanging from the side of O'Blarney's hip by one hand.

  Then Delater let out an even loader roar and flung himself backwards as quickly as he had moved forward.

  Below her, Red saw that Johnny had drawn his blaster and had his finger pressed hard against the trigger, the barrel pressed to O'Blarney's forehead.

  Then Delater's motion caught her, she was flung up, her arm lost its weak grip entirely, and she was falling, falling...

  ... to land, seconds later, on the broad, complex landscape of the exoskeleton's hip.

  Her landing made a loud, bell-like clanging noise.

  Loud enough for Delater to hear.

  His giant head began to move, tilting down towards her position, following the motion of his tiny pink head, which was now only five metres above her. There was nothing between her and him now but the network of wires supporting him within and transmitting his movements to the exoskeleton which held him.

  In another second he would be able to see her. And unlike Middenface, she still had a balloon implanted in her chest. He only needed to press one tiny button on the control console she could see beside him, and she would be dead.

  "Delater!" Johnny shouted. "I'm gonna blow this damn thing up if you don't let us go!" Johnny's voice was a rough croak. The fall had clearly hurt him badly.

  But Delater heard it. His head swung away from Red and towards Johnny. "I'll kill you if you do," he said. "Just give O'Blarney to me, and we'll say no more about it."

  Red knew Johnny couldn't keep this bluff up for long. But she was nearly there. Slowly, carefully, she began to creep towards the centre of the vast silver plane of Delater's hips.

  "Those little bombs of yours take a few seconds to get going," Johnny was saying. "Plenty of time for me to pull the trigger before I die."

  Delater shrugged, feigning nonchalance. "Why should I care? The head is only a symbol, after all. What I really wanted was O'Blarney's life."

  "Really?" Johnny drawled. "I could've sworn what you were really after was evidence of O'Blarney's affair with President Hillary. Evidence you can only get from this head."

  Delater let out a roar of rage.

  Red was finally in the right position, with a clear view of Chick's chest. If he'd looked down even a tiny bit, he would have seen her. But he was too focussed on Johnny. She took out the tiny blowpipe and raised it to her lips.

  "Looks like stalemate to me," Johnny said.

  Delater smiled. "Not quite," he said - and a thin red laser beam shot out from the huge red eye of the exoskeleton and into the barrel of Johnny's blaster. The gun was flung away from Johnny's hands, glowing with heat. Then the laser moved to his other hand.

  Johnny let out a helpless gasp of pain and dropped O'Blarney's head.

  Above him, Red pursed her lips and blew.

  And Middenface, who had been watching Red's progress with great care, drew his own gun and shouted. "Pick on someone yer own size, ye wiggy wee scunner!"

  Delater spun to face him. He looked at the gun with contempt, and sighed. "I'm afraid you've tried my patience too far, Mr McNulty," he said.

  Red saw the tiny pink form above her reach out a delicate hand and press a button on the control panel in front of it.

  The instruction to expand went out. The balloon, which had been created for this precise moment, obeyed. The balloon, which was no longer inside Middenface McNulty, the balloon which Red had just blown into Delater's own chest, began to grow.

  For a second, Delater didn't realise what was happening.

  Then he let out a cry of pain, and looked down at his own body. Instinctively, his small pink arms moved in to cradle his chest. The giant exoskeletal arms mimicked the motion. Johnny and Middenface flung themselves out of the way of the flailing limbs.

  Delater, weeping with fear, dropped to his knees. The exoskeleton did likewise.

  His pink skin was growing, tearing, rivers of blood leaking from the fissures. Then, with a final whimper, Delater expanded to the size of large pink balloon and exploded.

  Deprived of any control at all now, the exoskeleton began to collapse.

  Red flung herself against the silver surface of the hip bone and clung on for dear life as it moved from horizontal to vertical in a few seconds.

  Woman Man and Enigma barely avoided being squashed beneath one giant hand.

  It was almost over now.

  Middenface and Johnny, clear of the wreckage, turned to watch the exoskeleton's death throes.

  Watched as the torso collapsed like a felled tree trunk, straight downwards, clanging deafeningly against the metal of the floor, creating a vast, man-shaped dent beneath it.

  Right in the centre of the whole structure, the tiny burst form of Delater's fleshy body floated to the floor, landing directly on top of the severed head of Bad Boy O'Blarney.

  Somewhere inside the head that was really a trigger, a countdown started counting down.

  24 / THE END OF THE WORLD

  Johnny launched himself at O'Blarney's severed head, diving through the silver cage of the fallen giant's ribs, but he was far too late. It was enveloped in a swathe of Delater's wrinkled pink skin. Delater's head, severed from the rest of his body by the force of the balloon exploding inside him, rested on the ground, attached to the shroud of skin by one thin tendril of flesh. The whole thing was surrounded by a pool of dark scarlet blood, reflecting the sun and sky above them.

  Johnny tore O'Blarney's head lose from its nest of skin, and began frantically searching for an "off' switch on its seemingly smooth surface. He was prodding its eyes with his finger when a green light suddenly flared inside them. Then Johnny felt a horrible squirming motion beneath his fingers. After a second, he realised that it was the thing's jaw muscles moving.

  "All right, Chick me old mucker," the head said in O'Blarney's voice. "Sorry this is a recording and all that, but I didn't want to stick around for the explosive finale." The mouth twisted beneath Johnny's fingers into a smile. "If that last sentence alarmed you, it was meant to. Course I should have just blown up and have done with it, but I couldn't resist a last gloat. Cause you've fallen for it hook, line and sinker, mate. So think of me, and how I've outwitted you completely during the last-"

  The mouth suddenly stilled. Then the eyes widened, and the figure "30" appeared, glowing in the centre of each green iris.

  "-seconds you have remaining," the mouth finished, then went permanently still. The little counter in the eye ticked down to 29.

  Johnny looked up to see that he was surrounded by a ring of horrified Strontium Dogs.

  "Turn it off!" Middenface shouted. "Turn it off now!"

  "He can't, you cretin!" shouted a voice from the other side of the room.

  It was O'Blarney's other head, the real one, cradled in the arm of Galactic Commission President Hillary the Third.

  The number in the eyes of the head cradled in Johnny's arms ticked down to 25.

  As soon as they saw her, the Strontium Dogs reached for their weapons. But it was too late. Hillary was pointing the barrel of a very large plasma thrower straight at them.

  The number ticked down to 23.

  Hillary strode a few paces nearer.

  Red glared at her. "Doesn't coming to gloat in person kind of defeat the object?"

  "We wouldn't be here if we had a choice!" Hillary spat back.

  "Well then, would you mind disarming the bomb?" Woman Man said. "If it's not too much sneck
ing trouble!"

  The eyes told them they had eighteen seconds left.

  "I can't," O'Blarney said.

  "You what?!" Middenface shouted. He looked ready to leap on O'Blarney, plasma thrower or not.

  "I can't," O'Blarney repeated, through gritted metallic teeth. "It can't be disarmed. I didn't want to give Chick any way out."

  Thirteen seconds now.

  "You-" Middenface roared.

  Twelve.

  "I can," Johnny interrupted him. "I know how to disarm it."

  Ten.

  "How?" Hillary shouted, moving forward and thrusting her plasma thrower straight into his face. "Tell me how!"

  Seven.

  Johnny didn't blink. "Give me the gun and O'Blarney's head and I'll show you."

  Five.

  "He's bluffing!" O'Blarney shouted.

  Four.

  Johnny shrugged. "What've you got to lose?"

  Three.

  Hillary hesitated. O'Blarney's green eyes burned into Johnny's white ones. The other Strontium Dogs remained frozen in place. The only sound was the nervous scratching of Middenface's hand through the lumps on his head.

  Two.

  Hillary handed the gun to Johnny. He didn't move. After a moment's more hesitation, she handed him O'Blarney's head too.

  One.

  Johnny stepped back, holding the real head and the fake head together in the crook of one arm, and the plasma thrower in the other. And then he did nothing at all.

  The bomb exploded.

  25 / THE END OF THE WORLD (SLIGHT RETURN)

  The entire planet, every living thing on it, and everything else too, ceased to be.

  And that was just the beginning.

  The planet of Epsilon Five had never been hit by a time bomb and renamed Speed. It had never been discovered by a party of human explorers. It had never coalesced out of the dust which spun round the Type Three sun at the centre of its solar system. The dust itself had never formed in the Big Bang which began it all and the life forms which until a moment ago had been crawling all over its surface, they had never existed either. Glasgow had never been terrorised by a strange little boy with bumps all over his head. Two ordinary parents had never screamed in horror as their baby's first smile revealed two tiny, perfect fangs. And the mutant revolution had failed, failed utterly, because a boy called Johnny Alpha had never been born to lead it.

  Chick Delater had never existed. Bad Boy O'Blarney had never existed.

  The bomb itself had never existed.

  It had never exploded.

  In a fraction of time shorter than any human being could conceive, the world snapped back into existence.

  All the people on it regained their futures, and their pasts. Durham Red lived to break the hearts of her parents. Middenface McNulty was the terror of Scotland. The mutant revolution almost succeeded with Johnny Alpha at its forefront.

  Chick Delater discovered Bad Boy O'Blarney's secret and set out to blackmail the President of the Galactic Commission.

  The President of the Galactic Commission and Bad Boy O'Blarney built a bomb to stop him.

  The bomb exploded.

  The world ceased to exist.

  The bomb ceased to exist.

  So the world didn't cease to exist.

  Faster and faster, there, not-there, there... Only each time the circle of destruction a little smaller.

  First only a continent was wiped out. Then only a thousand square kilometres of land. Then only a hectare. Only O'Blarney's base. Only the roofless room which contained the bomb itself.

  Until, finally, only the bomb itself blinked out of existence.

  And didn't return.

  The world was still there. It included a Scottish mutant called Middenface McNulty and a vampire woman who went by the name of Durham Red, both of whom were staring at Johnny in shocked disbelief. It also included the two remaining members of Team X. They were cowering on the floor, the larger form of Jo wrapped protectively around the childish figure of Enigma.

  It included Galactic President Hillary the Third.

  And it included Johnny Alpha, holding the head of Bad Boy O'Blarney in one arm. In the other was a large plasma thrower, its barrel pointed directly at President Hillary's heart.

  "What the hell...?" said virtually everyone.

  Hillary took a step towards Johnny.

  He waved the gun threateningly at her. "I'd stay right about where you are if I were you."

  "What's going on?" she hissed at him.

  Johnny shrugged. "Told you I'd disarm it."

  O'Blarney's voice spoke from beneath his arm. "But you didn't do anything!"

  "Didn't need to," Johnny said, keeping his eyes - and his gun on Hillary. "The bomb never could have worked. Because if it did, it never would have existed, and never could have blown up. The only way out of it was for the trigger to self-destruct. Anything else created an impossible time paradox." His eyes flicked down briefly to O'Blarney's. "Guess you're not as smart as you think."

  "You tricked us!" Hillary said, disbelief and then fury chasing themselves over her face. "I should have listened to what they told me and put you all in camps!"

  She glared viciously at Johnny. Johnny glared right back, focussing the full force of his rage on her. After a moment, she dropped her eyes, and Johnny turned to Middenface. "Do me a favour," he said. "Tie her up."

  Middenface hesitated a moment, still shell-shocked. Then he shook his head, like someone dispelling a bad dream, pulled some rope out of his backpack and headed over to the President. Johnny noticed him wrenching the knots on her arms tighter than was strictly necessary and she gave a sharp cry of pain. Johnny didn't blame him. He knew they couldn't kill her - mutants killing the Galactic Commission President would have given too many mutant-haters the excuse they were looking for - but that didn't mean they had to treat her like royalty. When he'd finished binding her, Middenface pushed Hillary down to her knees beside him.

  "Get your filthy mutant hands off her!" O'Blarney said. His disembodied voice, lacking a chest in which to resonate, was considerably higher pitched and less threatening than it had been before.

  Johnny grasped the robot's head between his hands and held it out before him, so that he could stare into its bright green eyes. "Listen, buster," he said, "if you want your girlfriend to get back to Earth in anything like the shape she left it, you won't say another word for the rest of the journey. I'm sick of the sound of your voice."

  "You wouldn't dare hurt her - she's the Galactic President," O'Blarney said, but he didn't sound entirely convinced.

  Johnny shook his head. "Not for much longer." He looked O'Blarney right in the eyes. His alpha rays didn't generally work on non-human life forms, but O'Blarney flinched anyway. "See, this is how it's going to be. You're coming back to the Doghouse with us. There's a bounty on your head and I mean to collect it. Now, when it comes time to hand you over, I'll probably feel obliged to tell them about all that juicy information concerning you and Hillary that's hidden away inside your circuits. Of course-" he switched his gaze to Hillary, kneeling on the floor beside Middenface - "if I find that by the time I'm back in the Doghouse it's been announced that Galactic Commission President Hillary the Third has retired to spend more time with her family, well, I might just keep quiet and let them throw O'Blarney here straight in the incinerator without looking inside that nasty head of his first."

  Hillary stared him right in the eyes, suddenly looking interested rather than frightened. She understood the choice he was offering her. If she was prepared to watch her lover die, she could lose her career but keep her reputation, maybe live to stand for government another day. Johnny didn't like giving her that chance, but if the truth got out, the scandal could destroy the Galactic Commission - and it might take the Strontium Dogs down with it. Johnny wasn't willing to take that risk.

  "So, what do you say?" Johnny said now to Hillary.

  "I think it's time I took a break from public life," she said. H
er eyes, he saw, were very carefully avoiding O'Blarney's.

  "What?" O'Blarney shouted. Johnny considerately turned his head round so it was facing towards Hillary. "You're gonna let them kill me?"

  Hillary looked pained. But it was a political kind of pain, carefully calculated. "What can I do? I don't have any choice."

  O'Blarney's silvery features twisted into an expression of hurt disbelief. "You could tell the truth! You could tell them about our love, try to convince them there's nothing wrong with it!"

  "What's the point?" Hillary said, her tone sweetly reasonable. "People will never accept us. If this gets out it will destroy me, and they'll kill you anyway."

  If O'Blarney had been able to produce saliva, Johnny reckoned he would have been frothing at the mouth. "You bitch! I'm not letting you do this to me. If you go down I'm taking you with me! I'll tell everyone what we did together!"

  Hillary shrugged. "Tell them what you like. You're a murderer and a wanted criminal. I'm the President of the Galactic Commission. Who do you think they'll believe?" Then she turned away, dismissing him.

  Johnny saw the green light in O'Blarney's eyes flare up with rage, then slowly fade away. It was, the Strontium Dog thought, the only time in his life he'd seen the precise moment when love died.

  He looked round at the ragged remnants of his band. At Middenface, arms folded, watching Hillary with undisguised glee. At Durham Red, who was watching Johnny with an expression that might almost have been admiration. And at Jo, scarred but alive, cradling the small body of Enigma in her arms. Enigma had been crying, but now her tears had dried and Johnny could hear her asking Jo if she would brush her hair for her.

  It had been, Johnny decided, not a bad two days' work.

  Halfway down the mountain, on the long trek back to Team X's ship - their only means of transport off the planet - Red suddenly smelt a familiar smell. It was the coppery tang of blood, but more than that, it was the scent of a person she recognised.

  She smiled, baring her fangs, then turned to Johnny. He was at the rear of the party, taking it in turns to help carry Enigma. From the pained expression on his face, Red guessed that the telekinetic mutant was no more pleasant company as a little girl than she'd been as a grown woman. Or maybe it was the abuse being shouted at him by O'Blarney that was getting to him. Johnny had thrown the robot's head into his backpack, but its muffled mechanical voice could still be heard, keeping up a constant stream of insults as they walked. Hillary, being pushed along at the head of the party by Middenface, was keeping far quieter. But then, Red thought, she must know she was getting off lightly. If it had been up to Red, Hillary wouldn't be making it off the planet alive, but it was Johnny's call. Besides, Red had other fish to fry.