Story: The Disappearance (VII)

(Part VI , VIII)

So far, so twisty. Carter and I had been called out in our capacity as Plain Chocolate Digestive Detectives, fearless and peerless investigators of bizarre occurrences linked to those baked goods, and now I was on a mission to prevent a temporal rip at the heart of McGonagle Biscuits that would ultimately engulf most of the country and have me meeting myself in dingy pub back rooms. Truly, I had got the girl in the end apparently, but a death toll exceeding three is not a price worth paying for loving walks in the park.

The worst part of the whole mess was that there really wasn't much to be done about a time travel problem when the travel was taking place in the future. It would be like trying to stop a cannon by putting cardboard over the target. Thinking about that option, it didn't seem that bad, and that scared me even more than a temporal schism. Cardboard over a cannon target? Pshaw!

Why hadn't future me vanished? He didn't remember meeting me so he was from another timeline. His report on the events of the next few days was troubling and complete. Agnes had calmed down considerably upon being untied and left to talk to her future self for a few minutes, which led to where we were now: Deep in the heart of McGonagle Biscuits awaiting a shipment of super-profitable biscuits from the future. That wasn't the most unlikely thing I had ever written on an activity report, sadly.

Throughout all our inspections of the McGonagle plant we had never discovered a single discrepancy or evidence of shady misdeeds in the company; They were  squeaky clean and yet they had the highest incident rate of every company. Now it all made sense, as the new president Agnes explained it. We were hidden in a corner of the warehouse at one o'clock in the morning, holding hands as people do in the dark, and when she squeezed I knew something was about to happen. A great prism like effect shimmered with sickly yellow light above the crates and a suspiciously empty patch of floor. From out of the effect a crate was lowered by wire and people bustled about in protective clothing that sparked in contact with the cargo. A second was lowered and then a third, and finally what I knew to be the final one began to be moved into our time frame.

There was no reason to do what I did next, nor even for Agnes to follow me. As the crate was released I dashed forward and grabbed the hook end of the rope and we were raised up toward the effect and through.

Only in the future could we save our present, and maybe even the people who had all died or disappeared in the past. That shadow on the sidewalk of the street that began this incident could be avenged at last. Some people talked about biscuit futures, but we knew the real saviour would be in future biscuits.

Some times awful jokes are necessary in the face of the unknown. Wherever we were going, the reception was going to be interesting to say the least.
 
To be continued...