Party time

Where:- Edinburgh, Scotland, UK, Earth
When:- January 2089
"What am I missing?" thought Nigel, as he looked around the Thomas
family home. He'd been through the entire house, ransacking the
place, beds upturned, pillows and mattresses sliced open, cupboards
and drawers emptied and yet there was no sign of them..
Nigel, like his entire race, the Archivers, had studied the history
of Dean Thomas at length, it was required reading at school. Every
Sunday of his childhood he'd been forced to wear his best clothes
and was dragged by his parents to the local place of worship where a
priest would read a passage or two from the Chry'ler prophecies,
telling stories of the supreme deities, Phil, god of war, Dean, god
of chaos, mayhem and destruction and Jay, writer of the holy texts
and keeper of the sacred kebab, and there was ABSOLUTLEY NO DOUBT IN
HIS MIND that he was in the right place and the right time.
This WAS Dean Thomas' eighth birthday, and this WAS his house. The
history books had always said how Dean celebrated his birthday here,
with a birthday party, with jelly, and cake and ice cream and pass
the parcel. The books were very clear on this, Nigel may not have
believed in the prophecies, he didn't believe that the three men
described in the stories were gods, he may have refused to sing his
children lullabies about Jay's raising of the great blue vessel from
the ocean, or Phils death, and subsequent resurrection, but he knew
his history, and Dean WAS supposed to be here.
He cursed under his breath, and muttered something about how it was
bad enough his people misinterpret the journal of a starship captain
as a religious document, but how they can't even get the simplest
part of their `gods' history right. How was he supposed to
assassinate someone when he can't even find them!
Then it struck him, who was the man who had chased him through the
book depository when he'd tried to kill the young Phil, and the two
men who had stopped him from succeeding in the school? He'd seen
them before…he pulled out his handheld computer and checked the
history files, he searched until he found an `artists impression' of
the `gods'. The sketch was a rough approximation of what the three
great ones might have looked like. A dark haired man stood at the
back, with an identical, but much smaller copy stood at his feet. He
had angel wings and a halo and was dressed in a white robe. To his
left was a blonde man, also with a halo and wings with an open book
on his lap and a feather quill in his left hand and to the right was
a third, tall dark haired man, with upside down angel wings, and a
toastie in his hand. The sketches were fairly inaccurate, but Nigel
was still able to identify the men he had seen. They were the same
three men depicted in the picture, but without the midget.
They must have travelled back through time to stop him, THEY must
have been the reason the young Dean was nowhere to be found, they
had changed history!
From the corner of his eye, Nigel saw a small, flashing LED. The
answering machine…there was one message..he played it.
"Hi…erm…" the voice changed to a whisper, talking to someone in the
background *Dean, whats your mum's name?*
"MRS THOMAS!" came a voice in reply
"Oh yeah…Erm,, hi Mrs Thomas, my names Phil..OUCH! *what did you do
that for Jay?..oh right, sorry…* sorry, my names erm..Xavier Keto,
calling from McDonalds! I understand little Dean is having a
birthday soon and we'd like to invite you to a free childrens
birthday party in our restaurant! We hopw to see you soon!"
Nigel was out the door before the message had finished.
Where:- McDonalds, Edingburgh
When:- January 2089
"Jay…" said Phil, fully dressed in an ill-fitting McDonalds uniform
(he had three gold stars on his badge, which read "Dave") and
deflecting a plastic ball from the childrens ball pit from hitting
him in the face "are you sure about this plan?"
"What could go wrong?" Jay said, he too was in a Mcdonalds uniform,
his badge read "Steve, Restaurant Manager" and was adorned with the
full five stars "We've removed Dean from the place the assassin
will look for him, and brought him to where we can keep an eye on
him!"
"But what if he comes here?" Dean, whose badge bore no stars and the
name of "Caroline" asked.
"Well then we're ready for him!" Jay tapped his lower back as if to
indicate that his was still carrying the pistol, which was concealed
tucked into the waistband of his trousers and tucked under his
McDonalds uniform shirt.
"Ok…" Dean said "But what if.." he was interrupted by a flying
drinking straw that whizzed past his face, thrown by the young Phil
who was still in their custody from his own attempted assassination,
and who was now currently eating a happy-meal with some of the young
deans party guests. "What if *they* call the police?"
"Who?"
"The actual staff of this place!"
"Dean, their all bound, gagged and naked in the stockroom, they're
not going anywhere, besides, we're gonna let them go once were
certain little-Dean is safe."
"What's my penis got to do with anything.."
Jay responded to this by tossing a Big Mac into Deans face. "Stop
worrying, I know what I'm doing..now go and serve the birthday
cake…"
"No cake today!" Dean said
"What?"
"Nah, I thought I'd try something different, little-dean's getting a
real treat for his birthday." He held out a metal platter covered by
a lid, which he removed revealing his `surprise'.
"A cheese and ham toastie with a candle on it?" Jay said, making no
effort to hide his cynicism.
"No, philistine" Dean said with no small amount of hurt in his
voice. "Bacon and Brie!"
He handed it to the young Dean.
"What is it?" asked the child.
"The most wonderful thing in the world…" Dean replied
Little Dean took a bite from the toastie, and a wide smile formed on
his face. For a moment, adult-Dean thought he was going to cry.
Little Dean looked up at Dean "When I grow up. I'm going to eat
these every day!"
"UM…JAY!!" Phil said with a sudden panic, he was looking out of the
window.
"What?"
"You know the guy who's trying to kill the kids?"
"Yeah…"
"He's found us!!"
Sure enough, Nigel could be seen, assembling a rifle in broad
daylight in the restaurant car park.
"DEAN, PHIL! TAKE THE KIDS, NOW!!" Jay yelled, Dean and Phil
responded by hoisting their respective younger selves up onto their
shoulders and running out the back to where Jay's car was parked,
Jay ran out into the car park, pulling his gun out from his belt.
Nigel, heard a screeching of tyres and looking up, saw the same
convertible that he had seen in London, fleeing from the school with
the young Phil in tow, vanishing up the road driven by Dean He
grabbed the gun he had now finished assembling and ran around to the
front of his own vehicle and started the engine, narrowly avoiding
being hit by the bullet that sailed through the back window and out
the front. Nigel turned to see where the shot had come from and saw
Jay, running toward him, who fired another shot, which hit the cars
petrol tank.
Nigel quickly climbed out of the car, as the flames began to engulf
the tank. He raised his rifle to take aim, but Jay was quicker on
the trigger and shot Nigel in the arm, making him drop his gun, Jay
quickly reached the spot where Nigel stood, kicked the gun away and
took the opportunity to pin him to the ground, holding his gun
against his cheek.
"Give me one good reason why I shouldn't kill you right now?"
Nigel said nothing, just reached for a discarded soft-drinks cup on
the floor and hit Jay over the head with it. The cup was made form
cardboard and didn't hurt Jay, but the sudden impact took him by
surprise, not to mention the sensation of the semi-melted ice-cubes
mixed with the dregs of flat coke being unexpectedly thrown over his
head, covering him in a cold, sticky fluid, and distracted him for
just long enough for Nigel to wiggle free, he kicked Jay in the head
and ran toward a car parked in the car park, coincidentally, Dean's
mothers, smashed the window glass, opened the door and skilfully and
quickly hotwired the vehicle, before reversing out of the space and
disappearing up the road in the direction Dean and Phil had headed.
Jay wasted no time in getting back to his feet and without stopping
to think, pointed his weapon at the rider of a passing motorcycle
who raised his hands and climbed off the bike, on to which Jay
climbed and rode away at speed in pursuit, stopping only to pick up
the weapon dropped by Nigel moments earlier…
<to be continued>