(Part O , XVIII , XX)
Lily had been true to her word and consulted Abbott the Mesopotamian super-computer. Agnes was holding the transcribed response when we came in and whisked her and our doped prisoner off to McGonagle Biscuits, so many miles away.
Abbott had concluded that the temporal schism had been a consequence of all the effects of the biscuit time travel cheat catching up to our own present. We had reached the time when they had begun sending things back and so the anomalies and the so-called extra mass of the shipments and residuals atoms had begun to annihilate as they closed their own loops. At some point, if there was in truth going to be a temporal explosion, then it would the result of accumulated loop closing. We had to stop those loops from closing by stopping the initial time shipment, causing a paradox and thus forcing the whole story to terminate in a whole other way.
Carter was driving almost maniacally - as was her fashion - and we were steadily getting closer to our destination. Rolf stirred, and I wondered for a moment at the ethics board that would follow when they found out how much time the prisoner had been zonked over this case. Agnes was sitting pale faced and trying not to be sick.
The question as it appeared to me - close shave by a milk tanker - was to locate the source of the time travelled biscuits. We just had to find the real factory. A police car was following us but Carter swerved through a side street and took a parallel tack. The police car didn't make it and lost sight of us, fittingly behind a McGonagle lorry. A McGonagle lorry...
"Carter, I have it, we need to track the ingredients going to the secret plant. They must have begun production by now. That whole thing at the flat was just the beginning, the result of my catching up with the arrival of that me who came from the future. An orphan future now. We've got to get back to HQ and access the traffic camera footage, and dump Rolf in the cells. And deal with the Commissioner too."
Carter pulled a swift left and we headed to Newton's Mill, home of our branch for more than five years. Five years of tragedies instigated by biscuit smuggling from the future. We parked in front and went inside, lugging Rolf, and keeping Agnes close by. Carter got the desk man to help her with the prisoner to the cells and I went up to my office to concoct some cover story.
Unfortunately the cover story was not to be, as there waiting for me was the genial, noble, and thoroughly corrupt Commissioner. The man who had tried to manipulate Carter into causing a crisis.
The problem had come to find me instead of me the problem. As I had before, I took the excuse of there being very little time, and slugged him.
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