Riley was spat violently out of the temporal vortex; she rolled across the floor and pounced up from her hands and knees. Scanning the unfamiliar cave-like room was difficult; most of the lighting came from electrical flashes arcing from one gigantic coil to another. Huge, overly-complicated, cobbled-together pieces of technological equipment loomed above and around a raised central dais, where stood a tiny robed man, cackling maniacally, hands aloft, grasping at the vastness of the universe.
“Doctor Time!” Riley expectorated. “Whatever you’re planning, you won’t get away with it this...” she hesitated, “… time!” The young girl’s face betrayed her slight embarrassment.
“FOOLISH CHILD!” griddled the man, in chronological order, “your meddlesome insinuations cannot stop what cannot be stopped… TIME!”
“Oh, yeah? Shut up!” Riley chundered, wiping chin spittle with her sleeve. Cart-wheeling forward with a grace only achievable after four months’ worth of Saturdays at gymnastics, Riley planted herself resolutely between the madman and a glowing control panel, which she incorrectly assumed was probably important.
Cursing and sneezing inconveniently, the Doctor reached inside his robe, because he was itchy. Then, he reached inside his robe again, but this time, rather than relieve a minor discomfort, he produced a technologic wand, which is like a magic wand, but different because it casts technologic spells, not magic spells.
“Hi ya!” Riley disgorged, kicking at the diminutive man, whose spindly arms were no thicker than a common household broomstick. She missed, and her shoe flew across the room, flipping end-over-end until it smacked anti-climactically against a wall, because she hadn’t listened to her parents, who’d always told her to tie her shoelaces in a bow before beginning karate fights with apocalyptic consequences.
Dr. Time, seizing the moment, leapt backward off the dais and brandished his wand with a flourish. Vortices, not dissimilar from the one that had upchucked Riley, erupted all about the lair, swirling and churning like toilets full of purple food colouring. Shadowy shapes lurked within the depths, and haunting, distorted voices seeped through, echoing creepily off the walls.
“Let them eeeeeaaat caaaaaaake...”
“Et tuuuuu, Brutuuussss?”
“Let my peeeeeople gooooo...”
“I did noooot haaaave seeexual relaaaationnnss with thaaat woooomannn...”
“Behold! I am the undisputed master of time-o-mancy! The culmination of my timeplan is nigh! With my invention, I can create an infinite number of Chrono-holes in the Timescape! Each of these is a gateway to a pivotal point in history! I may travel through any that I desire, and alter key events as I see fit!”
No sooner did a brilliant idea begin to form in the clever, pre-pubescent mind of Riley Day, then a smallish figure arose behind Dr. Time and clocked him in the skull with her missing shoe. The minute man crumpled to the floor and dropped his wand, which shattered. The portals, with an amusing squelching sound, blinked out of existence at once.
“Choice!” barfed Riley, high-fiving her future self. Before hooking arms with her new time-twin and skipping off into destiny, Real Riley made sure to grab Dr. Time’s scruffy hair in one hand, his chin in the other, and snap his delicate, brittle neck.
On their way out of the cave, they both tripped, since each girl was missing a shoe from her right foot, and the left shoes were still untied.
- Tom Williams, November, 2013
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