Timeporting

Chapter One
Meditating whilst being poked was hard, so Agateno Windjammer 1459 AD gave up. Eyes opened,
he observed the sun, the long grass and the Australopithecus afarensis or the hairy blokes as he
liked to call them with contentment. The breeze was carrying in the scent of papayas from the
nearby forest, and the prairie on which he was sitting was summer dry. He was lucky to have
chanced upon such a peaceful spot, free from all but natural troubles. The place exuded a certain
warm spiritual oneness...though the poking did ruin the zen atmosphere somewhat.
'You having fun there, mate?' he asked the hairy bloke who was touching him. The ape-man gave
a grunt before carrying on.
Agateno let it go. He was freakish in his own dimensional year, let alone in 3,981,362 BC. Being
inspected was to be expected. His amber, almond-shaped eyes and long grey hair set him apart from
the average British-Native American Gakee alright, but it was his skin, the patchwork of white,
brown, black and even olive green tissue all stitched together that made him grotesque. He had been
handsome once, before the War for the Present. He remained tallish and athletic, and tried to keep
stylish, wearing a russet brown hooded cloak on top of an olive green poncho suit, with a silver,
wrist-mounted Navigator for timeporting. Agateno took a wooden bird out of his poncho suit
pocket.
'If you wanted to alleviate your boredom then you need only have asked,' he said to the hairy
bloke. 'Take a look at this beauty. It's an Ascension frigatebird. Carved by my cousin, painted by
myself.' He flew the smooth bird around on his fingers, the hairy bloke's concentration shifting to it.
'See? Endless fun for all the family, and yours for only one papaya.' He gestured to the cluster of
fruit beside them.
The hairy bloke's face scrunched up, the logistics of the proposition sending billions of neurons
cascading to comprehension within his brain. Snorting, he took up all the papayas he could carry
and wandered off. Agateno bit into a papaya that had been left behind. His canine punctured a seed,
adding bitterness to the sweet taste.
Rejected again. Must be hereditary, he thought, recalling all the times his mother had come home
with her bag still full of woodcarvings, having sold none. His melancholy was brief. How could
these hairy blokes, these originators of humanity, even begin to fathom the importance he placed on
the trading of such lifeless objects? Primitive as they were, they were born, slept, ate, bred, died and
that was that. The simple life. What did those gatherers in the long grass know of the pain of
personhood?
'Not much, not yet,' Agateno said to himself, before once more entering meditation. Undisturbed,
he tried to quiet the troubling thoughts he had brought with him from Teal Towers.
The scream of a machine.
His ears stung at the sound. Something was blocking the sun, so unyieldingly black that it might
have been charred by the star. It had an avian shape to it, with a straight, downward-angled beak,
soaring wings and a fan-like tail. Rising, Agateno only just caught the symbol on the intruder's
wing. It was a bent green line going sideways across the dark surface, resembling a planet's horizon.
It was the emblem of the Scientific Futurist Republic, a remnant of his old enemies from the War
for the Present, the Mobile Republic of the Future. The Mobile Republic of the Future had lost the
war to the Past Consortium, the alliance of Pastian time empires which he had served in, and had
fractured into a trio of smaller time empires because of it. All three remembered Agateno the War
Hero bitterly. Thus, once again, the Futurians had tracked him down to take vengeance.
Beam vulcans emerged from the underside of the bird-like fighter aircraft. Agateno seized the
force net from out of his hooded cloak and activated it, the ethereal blue force field spreading across
its square grid. He called out to the hairy blokes and ran to put himself between them and the fighter
aircraft. He was not fast enough. The buzz of the beam vulcans sounded, and hairy blokes exploded.
The Futurian Aerialist was shooting through them to get to Agateno, with the bright green beams

soon ricocheting off his force net at a hundred shots a second. The impacts made him buckle into
the long grass, and a blur of shadow sped over his body.
I've got nothing to fight it with, he thought, coughing up exhaust fumes.
The fighter aircraft was circling around for another run at him. Some of the hairy blokes were
fleeing, others were dying, most were dead.
'I'm sorry,' he said, before checking his Navigator for an unobstructed area, jumping upwards and
timeporting away.
When Agateno's feet hit the ground he was in the exact same spot, but within a different
dimensional year, the scenery having changed from the prairie to swampland. Like everybody else,
he and the Futurian Aerialist could timeport to other dimensional years naturally, simply
disappearing in one and reappearing in another. Nevertheless, their geographical locations remained
the same. He needed to distance himself from the tracking capabilities of the Futurian Aerialist's
Navigator. For that he would have to jump and timeport in between spurts of running, lest his feet
become mangled via sudden coexistence with new ground.
'Let's see if I've still got it,' Agateno said, kicking off a log and timeporting to a grey holt, then
sprinting ten meters before timeporting again.
The fighter aircraft followed him to 2,641,025 BC, tearing the jungle apart with its vulcans.
Agateno narrowly dodged a volley, but hit the side of his head on a kapok tree in the act. He had
outmanoeuvred similar fighter aircraft when serving as a snatcher, a military kidnapper, during the
War for the Present. But, he had been in a squad of snatchers then. Now he was alone. Timeporting
through multiple dimensional years as quickly as possible, Agateno gradually started to outpace the
Futurian Aerialist, who was slower for needing to timeport the fighter aircraft. In a giant wildwood
Agateno tripped on a root, falling and bashing his forehead on the earth. Yellow leaves spiralled
down against a cloudy saffron sky as he spasmed from the twinging.
'Ow. Well, that went badly,' he said as the fighter aircraft sent Carolina parakeets flying.
Lowering the fighter aircraft just above the tops of the giant sequoia trees for a better vantage
point, the Futurian Aerialist unleashed a barrage of beam vulcan fire. This time Agateno was too
disorientated to operate his Navigator and timeport away safely. Placing his force net on his back,
he darted as fast as he could around the wildwood. The smell of smoke and the cries of animals
pursued him as he tried to escape. He felt the jolting impacts of beams hammering the force net at
his back. Then a chunk of his right shoulder was ripped away.
I'm a dead man if I don't do something, hells.
Skidding to a halt, he crouched and pulled his force net over him. In response, the fighter aircraft
veered around in the air to keep its target in sight, but clipped its tail on the top of a tree in doing so,
sending the vehicle spinning.
'Thank the gods,' Agateno said, then focusing on operating his Navigator and timeporting away.
At last, in a blackened rainforest still occupied by the embers of a recent wildfire, the radar on
Agateno's Navigator went clear. Pouring with sweat from every patch of skin he had, he came to a
stumbling stop and lay down.
'S-still got it,' he said, laughing. Then he recalled the broken bodies of the hairy blokes, and
stopped laughing.
There, good as second hand, Agateno thought as he finished up binding his wound, the bandages
hugging the new indentation on his shoulder. As a test, he moved his right arm to pick up the first
aid kit. The pain incapacitated him for a full minute. He was kidding himself, he needed a medicine
man. The foreign dimensional years which he had been taking refuge in had become more
dangerous than what he was hiding from. It was time to quit lying low, it was time to return to Teal
Towers. Agateno sighed and took one last look at the skeletal huicungo trees. The bark of the
nearest broke off in his palm as he helped himself up. The crispy matter cracked into smaller
fragments when he flexed his hand. No models could be made of this dead wood.
It was nice while it lasted.

He followed the map on his Navigator to the closest designated reception zone, timeporting to
1459 AD upon receiving the automated okay. He emerged in a circular, crimson booth. The
whirring anti-gravity drives below the flooring kept him suspended in mid-air while his Navigator's
records were checked by scanners in the walls.
'Examination complete,' said a robotic voice. 'Welcome home, User Agateno.' The anti-gravity
drives were deactivated and half of the booth retracted itself.
Outside was a culture market, with herds of vibrantly dressed shoppers exchanging wampounds
and wares with vendors in double-decker stalls, all to the groove of electric guitarists. The market
was lit by neon lighting on the stalls as well as the surrounding tent-houses and block-buildings, but
it was the teal towers themselves, ten levels above them, that really defied the night with their
radiance. They had the shape of hexagonal prisms and were made of flexile steel, with each one
holding ten thousand tenants. Between the teal towers were their town platforms and
interconnecting sky roads, everything rippling with the motion of hover cars and helicopters. A few
new arrivals heeded Agateno with bewilderment upon his departing the row of reception booths, but
soon had their minds off the Frankenstein's Monster and back on their Navigators. Checking his
own, Agateno found he was in the borough of Tyke, West Teal Towers, two miles from the
proximate hospital-hut.
Right, jumped the first hurdle. Now all I've got to do is remain inconspicuous for...the rest of my
life. He pulled his hood up. Perfect.
He merged with the crowd heading north through Pocahontas Street, keeping his head down as
luxury hover cars cruised by on roads marked with corporate graffiti.
As well as being the capital city of the Crimson Chiefdom, an amalgam of British Empires and
Native American Chiefdoms, Teal Towers was the most renowned multicultural melting pot in any
dimensional year. In the time it took him traverse the sidewalk, Agateno had spied a family of
Roman-Japanese Romaji, an elderly Mongol-Viking Mongking and a group of Russian-Greek
Classico youths. With the local Gakee thrown into the mix, Teal Towers resounded with the chatter
of myriad languages.
He split from the crowd in front of a cybersphere caf, entering an alleyway beside it and using a
shortcut his architect father had taught him, one not on the Navigator maps. When he appeared on
the other end the hospital-hut could be seen, albeit as a white speck at the end of a lengthy
thoroughfare.
Shoulder hurts so bad, I'm going to lose consciousness before I get there, Agateno thought,
gritting his teeth as he staggered along. The opium would help ease the painno, got to remain
inconspicuous. Can't be getting stoned where anyone can see.... But this is agony! (Even) Cosmos,
God of Sky wouldn't wish this on someone! Okay, I'll smoke for five minutes to take the edge off,
then it's straight on to the hospital-hut.
Agateno flopped onto a lamppost-lit bench and took out his opium. A moment later and he was
laying on his side letting the drug numb his senses. Passers-by gave him a wide berth.
Weird, he thought, it's done the trick on the injury but I'm not half as baked as usual. I must be
becoming immune. That or Yaba's sold me a bad batch. That Yaba, why'd she have to go and land
me in this mess? Wish I could talk to her...nah, heavy conversation. Rather talk about music, rather
talk with Susumu. Wonder what she's doing now? Probably arresting someone. No, she doesn't do a
night shift. She'll be at home, living it up. He took a final puff from his pipe. Here's to you, Susumu.
He got up and gathered his things. Off to the hospital-hut I go, surprised I haven't been mugged at
this time of night.
He made it one step before being ambushed.
Something bulky entered his field of vision, swatting him back onto the bench. He tried to jump
and timeport as a muscle reflex, but found his wrists had been cuffed in timeport suspenders from
behind.
Had to go and jinx it. He spat out blood.
The pair of attackers moved to his front. The first was a slim woman of middling height, with
light skin, stringy red hair in a pony tail, and round, murky green eyes. She sported a sand-coloured

corset-hoodie and rode on the back of a violet-feathered utahraptor. The second was a lofty,
powerfully built woman, with tanned skin, spiky, back-length Titian hair, and the same round,
murky green eyes as the first. She had on forest green scale armour with matching gauntlets and
greaves, and was mounted upon a scaled utahraptor of the same shade.
So, they're doppelgngers of each other, he thought, the feathered utahraptor hissing in his face.
Having just witnessed a dinosaur tail-slam an opium addict, the passers-by stopped in their
tracks. The first attacker turned her utahraptor to face them, its teeth glistening with saliva.
'Go back to cunt that threw you,' she said in a Classico accent. The passers-by did not need
telling twice, shuffling away uncomfortably. The attackers were clearly gangstars, hotshots in the
criminal underworlds. The first attacker's smug expression dropped as soon as she got a good look
at Agateno. 'What fuck, this isn't him. Dick-food!' She punched her utahraptor in the neck.
'Stop hitting ze raptor,' said the second attacker in a similar tone. 'What do you mean, zis isn't
him? Your Anatomy Guide says so.'
The first attacker pointed a wrist-strapped device at Agateno and then scowled at it. 'It reads
dozens of DNA signatures, this junkie is DNA mongrel!'
'Doesn't mean it's not him,' said the second attacker, lifting a swaxe from her back scabbard, a
short sword with an axe head at the top of the blade.
'Eat bucket full of shit. Does this look like Agateno War Hero to you?' The first attacker pointed
to Agateno and then pulled out a TIME magazine cover. It was a picture of Agateno back when he
had been a good-looking, enlisted snatcher, as opposed to an ugly, freelance snatcher-for-hire.
Trouble, Agateno thought, then putting on a heavy Cherokee accent. 'Why do you women attack
me? I have done nothing wrong. I do not know this man you speak of.'
'Maybe you don't, maybe you do,' said the second attacker, getting off her utahraptor and leaning
into Agateno's personal space. 'I'm Demon, zat one over zere is Drakon. Now who are you?'
'Chogan. Chogan Stabs By Mistake 1430 AD,' he said, reciting the name of a cousin.
'Why do you have ze DNA of Agateno ze War Hero, Chogan?'
'How am I to know? As your doppelgnger says, I have lots of people's DNA. I was injured
during the war and the medicine men had to do the best with what skin they had. I could even be a
doppelgnger of him for all I know. What is this about?'
'Mind your own fucking business,' said Drakon.
'Shut up, Drakon, we have made zis his business,' said Demon coolly over her shoulder, before
returning her will-breaker stare to Agateno. 'Zis man, Agateno ze War Hero, he agreed to do a
snatcher-for-hire job for our employer, Overlord Vang. Do you know who zat is?'
'The dinosaur mogul, who doesn't?' said Agateno.
'Yes. He took ze retainer fee but didn't deliver on ze job. So now we have been tasked to bring
him in, dead or alive.' She patted the flat side of her swaxe against Agateno's bandaged shoulder, he
flinched. 'How did you get zis?'
'I just got mugged by a doppel gang, they shot me so I couldn't fight back.'
Demon tilted her head from side to side. 'And zey didn't take ze opium you were just smoking?
You're lying to me.'
'No, I swear. Why would I lie?'
'Demon!' Drakon said. 'New DNA signature has appeared on Anatomy Guide, much stronger
than one on this freak!'
'Coincidence. We should take him too to be sure,' Demon said.
'You stupid train station whore, there's no time. What if other one timeports away?'
Demon bit her lip. 'Fine, I'll make sure he doesn't go anywhere zen.' Taking hold of Agateno, she
sat him on the floor and handcuffed him to a leg of the bench, with his hands behind his back. 'If
you are who you say you are, Chogan, zen it is in your best interests to stay put until we come back.
If you call for help or try to escape...,' she leaned further in and whispered into his ear, 'zen I'll have
to hunt you down and flay you. Your skin would make for an interesting rug, no?'
Once Demon had gotten back on her utahraptor, the pair departed with frightening speed.
Bad high, Agateno thought as he began to shake. Okay, choices. I can stay here, get found out by

the gangstars and take my chances. Not liking that option. I can try phoning the commissaries for
help, although their usual response time is twelve minutes and the gangstars could be back before
then, hells. I could break free and try timeporting away. What am I thinking? In this state they'd
catch me before I was five dimensional years out. What am I going to do?! WaitSusumu! She's a
commissary, she deals with this stuff all the time. If I can get to Susumu I'll be safe-er. Just have to
get out of these timeport suspenders. Agateno straightened his bound arms behind him and cupped
his hands together. 'Ghost Dance, taken alive.'
The code phrase ejected a rectangular handle from a compartment in his Navigator, the Honeylocust wood-covered piece then dropping into his joined fingers. Going by touch he identified the
americium-lined gap that was the beam emitter at the top of the handle and rotated it away from his
fingers. He felt for, found and moved the smooth slider on the side until he heard a click. The beam
knife hummed as it activated. Moving the slider up three more clicks, he rendered the beam supercorporeal. Then he went to work on the time suspenders. With his careers as a snatcher and a
snatcher-for-hire taken into account, he'd been working with timeport suspenders for ten years.
Though the Futurian spacetime suspension technology within the suspenders was genius to the
point of Agateno not being able to understand a word of it, the casing was usually plain old flexile
steel. The severed timeport suspenders fell to the pavement with a clunk, and he deactivated the
glowing orange beam. After reinserting the handle into his Navigator he verified the location of
Susumu's home. It was four minutes walking distance away, on ground level within Spirit Guide
Time Breaker's Teal Tower.
Lucky. He pushed himself up and headed for the backstreets, feeling drowsy and numb. At the
mouth of an alley he caught the shamefaced glance of a Gakee entrepreneur, one of the passers-by
who had left him to the gangstars.
Before the entrepreneur could say anything Agateno placed a hand on his shoulder. 'Don't worry
about it.'
He traversed the waste-littered backstreets at a jogging pace, passing political prostitutes hustling
for their candidates and a doppel gang, a group of doppelgngers, clamouring around a dire wolf
fight. The bigger wolf snapping at the smaller's neck made Agateno wince. Had he not been jogging
for his life he would have intervened. In a passageway coated with worn posters for Teething Wars
6: Revengeance of the Neo Axis he decided to call the commissaries as an insurance plan. The
woman on the other end sounded sceptical as she took in what he was saying, but ultimately agreed
to inform Susumu and send a pair of commissaries to meet him at her residence.
Success! Things are finally on the up, he thought as he crossed into an area rife with acrid air, the
stink coming from a nearby Undercity manhole. He exhaled and held his nose. Or not.
Coming out of the backstreets, he attached himself to a posse of Lolitas striding the way of
Susumu's teal tower. Every so often a holographic advertisement would jump out at them from the
projectors lining the crowded strip, making Agateno nervous. Twice he thought he heard the hissing
of utahraptors.
Then he entered the teal tower through the line of sliding doors. Within, Gakee dcor abounded.
The floor and furniture were patterned in crimson and gold, the reception desks were engraved with
famous sayings from Gakee historical figures, and in the centre space was a stained glass statue of
the roaring, feather-maned lion seen on the flags of the Crimson Chiefdom. Most Gakee weren't that
patriotic, but the effort was made for tourism's sake. A triad of apartment, shopping and business
sections enclosed the open area, with two sides of the teal tower's hexagonal prism given to each.
Beyond ground level the interior looked like a web. Elevators, escalators, anti-gravity shoots and
stairs criss-crossed each other for ten levels up.
People paid good money to live on higher levels. The more skyward you were, the safer you
were from timeporting accidents. The memory of helping clean up such a mishap flashed through
Agateno's mind. Holding down a screaming chiefic trooper as the medicine man amputated his arm
from the stomach of a still-living Futurian. Agateno subdued his trembling and pressed on to the
apartment section, (More scenery) finding Susumu's home in a hallway that smelled of coconuts.
Susumu opened the door before he could knock. She looked him up and down and sighed.

Dat Susumu Damnum 117 AD was a Romaji, a petite and wiry one with an olive complexion
and brown freckles. She had black hair in a messy bob cut fitted with five black hairpin daggers that
were almost invisible against her locks, and dark brown eyes with a slight epicanthic fold. She wore
a red regalia, a fusion of a toga and a kimono, with white, swirling otter patterns. Tied to her right
arm were three ribbons, one black, one gold and one yellow, and tied to her left were two more in
blue and green.
'Three weeks with no word and now you turn up with trouble,' she said.
Agateno shrugged. 'Life in the fast lane.'
'Heaven and Earth.' She shook her head, and then nodded for him to get in.
As Susumu turned to open the sliding shji doors Agateno noticed she had a goo gun held in a
holster on her lower back. It was a stubby sidearm, painted in the black and yellow stripes that
indicated a physical hazard. The living room was uncovered to be the origin of the aroma in the
hallway, there was a burning incense on the kotatsu table next to a half-finished bowl of salmon and
noodle pottage. A collection of swords hung from the walls and Beethoven 1772 AD's Symphony
No. 11 played from a gramophone on the floor.
'I-ah just got off the phone with the department,' Susumu said, 'Dulcie and Victorian will be here
soon.' She gestured to Agateno's shoulder. 'Did the gangstars do that?'
He sat on the ground and groaned. 'No no, that's from a Futurian fighter aircraft. Unrelated.'
'I think you are cursed.'
'Cursed? My spirit monk can cure that easy enough. Did I ever tell you he can talk to trees?'
'Are you intoxicated?'
Agateno indicated his mauled shoulder with his thumb. 'Blame this.'
'Unacceptable. We will need your mind clear for-ah questioning.' Susumu disappeared into the
kitchen and came out with a syringe. She dropped it and picked it back up. 'Fart! You've gotten me
too excited. This is Boost, it should help sober you. Don't worry if you start to feel-ah unusually
energetic, it's normal.' Their eyes met as she injected the drug into his bloodstream. 'You, I had plans
for tonight you know. The Commissaries' Sun Dance Ball happens once every year. I will-ah not
forgive you.'
'Sorry. You look beautiful. If there's anything I can do to make it up to you'
'You can stop flouting the law.'
'That's just unaccommodating.'
A rapping came upon the door.
'Aegis Corps, open door!' said a voice Agateno recognised as Drakon's.
It's them, he mouthed to Susumu.
She gave an A-ok with her fingers. Keeping her eyes on the entrance, Susumu withdrew the
handle of a beam whip-sword from her wall. A straight, iridium spine extended from the weapon's
hilt, with pointed vertebrae running across it. She placed the whip-sword noiselessly on the
cupboard by the door, and then peeped through the peephole.
Drakon was knocking, Demon was glaring back at the peephole. Behind them were three
newcomers. The first was a blonde Mongking with the bulging physique of a wrestler under a
badger pelt coat. The second was a taller, darker, more handsome Mongking wearing goggles and a
sable twenty-first century suit. The third was a caveman, complete with a neanderthalic face, a
shock of brown hair and beard, and a leopard print poncho suit.
'If you do not open door it will be cut down!' Drakon said, motioning for Demon to hold with an
outstretched hand.
Susumu pointed to Agateno and curved her hand downwards in the direction of the living room.
Then she pointed to herself and bobbed her straightened hand from left to right. Commissary hand
signals, mutually intelligible with those Agateno had learnt in the Past Consortium Armed Forces.
You hide in the living room, I will stall the enemy, presumably until her commissary friends
arrived.
Agateno sneaked into the living room and closed the shji doors, leaving the smallest gap to
peek through. After positioning herself so as to wholly conceal the beam whip-sword with her body,

Susumu opened the door.

Drakon flashed a bronze badge. 'Aegis Corps business.' She tried to barge past, but Susumu
would not be moved, instead bringing out her own golden badge.
'What business is that?'
Drakon paused and narrowed her eyes at the lion crest, then scrutinising Susumu with an easy
expression. 'I apologise, commissary. We are chasing known felon, my Anatomy Guide is telling me
he is in your apartment.'
'There's no one in here but me. Does your Anatomy Guide have-ah three-dimensional mapping?
There are apartments in this position for ten levels up.'
'Yes, so if you would let u'
'I do not believe I caught your name.'
'DrakonDetective Drakon.'
'Ah, Commissary Dat. And your partners?'
Drakon's mouth tightened. 'Detective Demon,' Demon shot Susumu a look, 'Deputy Blaedla,' the
first newcomer raised his pockmarked face, 'Deputy Peer,' the second newcomer bowed his head
awkwardly, 'and Deputy...Growly,' the caveman growled.
'My pleasure. Now I think about it, I did not know the Aegis Corps had any authority outside the
Undercity.'
'Felon is so dangerous, we were given especial protocol. Expands jurisdiction for short time, you
understand.'
'Oh-ah, which protocol is that?' A scornful smile grew on Drakon's face in the following silence.
'You are not Aegis officers at all, are you? And yet you wish to enter my home.'
Drakon placed her thumb in the cleavage of her corset-hoodie and produced a roll of wampound
banknotes. 'Take walk down hallway. By time you are back, we will be gone.'
Susumu looked down at the bills, and then grimly back at Drakon. 'Ambitus,' she said, naming
the Romaji sin-crime of bribing an official.
Demon gripped her swaxe tighter and spoke in Romaji. 'Take the money or get hurt badly, you
bourgeois bitch.'
Susumu sucker punched Drakon in the jaw, making her collide with Peer and Growly, and drew
her goo gun. Demon dodged the splatter of vomit green goo shot her way, causing the projectile to
hit Blaedla and stick him to the wall. Demon smashed the goo gun out of Susumu's clutches with
her swaxe, Susumu avoiding the next swing via a backward dash. She grabbed and activated her
whip-sword, the shining azure beams extending along both sides of its spine, but locked blades with
Demon before she could elongate the armament fully. Struggling against superior strength, Susumu
faltered back into the apartment.
Coming up bloody-nosed and crazy-eyed, Drakon kicked the immobile Blaedla in the stomach.
'Useless sperm!' Then she powered through the door, beam lasso out. 'Leave yellow dago to
Demon! Find Agateno! That faggot is worth million wampounds alive!'
Oh to be wanted! Agateno thought, bursting through the shji doors with his force net draped
over his upper body. Shoulder charging Drakon off her feet, he made to cuff her in time suspenders
while she was winded, but was knocked aside by Growly's wooden club. Growly pursued Agateno
as he retreated, landing blow after blow onto his force net. Behind the toppled cupboard, Peer lined
up a shot on Agateno with his beam blaster.
Energy's waning, right arm's becoming unresponsive. Have to end this now. Grasping Growly's
twin-ties, Agateno headbutted him, leaving grid imprints on his face. He ducked below the beam
shot, but found himself raised by the neck afterwards, with a roaring Growly running them both into
the living room. Hells, just made him angrier.
Agateno felt a blast of air coming off of Susumu and Demon's duel in the bedroom. Then he was
timeported away. Growly landed in 1190 AD, an Aryan industrial gold mining operation, lifted off
again. 127 BC, a Romaji clockwork automaton factory, up and out. 700 AD, a vertical maze made
of mudbricks, and gone. After the fourth timeport Growly threw Agateno to the rocks. An alizarin
sun ruled the otherwise Stygian heavens. The landscape looked like the surface of the moon save

for the ruins of walking cities in the distance.

It was 4365 AD, a Futurian dimensional year.
The air was thick with pollution, Agateno wheezed. 'Did you just choke-throw me into the
Future? Why would you' He stepped on a skull, and discovered several more strewn about him.
There was roughly one skull for every three stones as far as the eye could see.
Mass grave, and he wants me dead, Agateno thought as Growly stormed towards him. I tried
making friends, mum, I really did.
Having only one arm operational enough to parry Growly's strikes, Agateno was soon knocked
on his back. From this position he managed to land an upward kick to Growly's chin, breaking loose
a lateral incisor from his mouth. Growly went berserk, plucking away half of the force net from
Agateno's upper body and clobbering the exposed flesh, with Agateno barely keeping hold of the
rest of his protection.
Peer timeported in nine meters away, crouching and aiming at Agateno. 'Off, Growly, he's down!'
he said in a hoarse voice. 'I need a clear shot!' Growly was too livid to comprehend anything outside
of himself and his victim, resorting to using his fists when his club broke in two. With Peer's orders
falling on deaf ears, he expelled a semi-corporeal round which hit the force net instead of Agateno
thanks to the scuffling. The beam rebounded off the net and into Growly's stomach, paralysing his
movements. 'Oh slave,' said Peer.
Agateno blocked five more beams by using Growly's body as a barrier. Peer reloaded swiftly, but
not before Agateno could timeport away.
Copperfield Manoeuvre, Agateno decided in 1981 AD, running and jumping off a roasting
Ryukyu boar encircled by sitting time bandits. When his Navigator screen went neon green,
indicating he'd passed the obstructed area, he timeported back to 4365 AD and swung around. Peer
was in arm's length with his back to him, just as planned. After taking out a set of full body timeport
suspenders, Agateno cuffed Peer's wrists and swiped the beam blaster out of his grasp. Peer tried to
belt at him with interlocked hands, but after his ankles were cuffed resistance became impossible.
The cords held between the suspenders contracted rapidly, forcing Peer to keel over and touch his
toes.
'Bloody guns,' Agateno said, unloading the beam blaster, 'ugly weapons.'
Peer's head angled upward, and Agateno swerved around to see what had caught his eye.
It was Demon, pouncing at him from the top of a stone rise as the sun went supernova behind
her. Her swaxe cleaved the beam blaster and slashed Agateno's middle, turning his force net from
blue to damaged red. Reeling back, he kicked up ash-dirt in her face.
She wiped the filth away with her gauntlet, her eyes reflecting the rainbow-shaded star eruption
one hundred and fifty million kilometres away. 'You escaped me. You embarrassed me.'
Demon then executed a flurry of blows, rupturing the net's force field and leaving Agateno with
nothing but an empty grid.
'Agateno!' called Susumu. She was racing towards them, her extended beam whip-sword trailing
on the ground.
The shout caught Demon's attention for a second. That was all Agateno needed. He hurled his net
at her, entangling her in it. She stabbed his right elbow as he withdrew, but could not follow up the
offensive with the netting restricting her movements. When Susumu's three meter whip-sword came
sweeping Demon's way, all she could do was brace for impact.
After suspending the debilitated gangstars in time, Agateno and Susumu timeported back to 1459
AD and placed them next to Drakon in the bathroom, whom Susumu had already cuffed at the
expense of a scratched cheek.
'Fuck your dead, you noble savage!' Drakon said to Agateno when he came in. 'When I am loose
I will'
He closed the door, muffling the cursing. 'She's got a mouth on her that one.' Susumu was
kneeling at the kotatsu table, piling up the broken parts of her gramophone. He sat down beside her.
'You think we could make your ball on time if we left now?'

She sucked in her cheek. 'Maybe,' she studied him sadly, 'but you're too wild of a dancer for
me....' She straightened herself up and coughed. 'Now, what is to be done? I will need to go down to
the department and file the incident, lots of paperwork but-ah Dulcie can help with that, if she ever
gets here. You need to see a medicine man before you fall apart. In the meanwhile I'll have put you
under commissary protection so this kind of thing can't happen again.'
'Groovy.'
From the open door a pair of commissaries walked in, each wearing a black tricorne hat, a red
deer hide jacket with matching leggings, and a Crimson Chiefdom flag cape. Agateno and Susumu
rose to meet them, and Agateno collapsed from exhaustion.

Chapter Two
Two weeks after coming out of surgery, Agateno was allowed to return home, albeit with a
commissary security detail somewhere on the premises. His apartment was in a black cathedral on
ground level, the inside of which having long since been renovated for shopping and housing
purposes. After trekking up the winding stairs to his dwelling, he patted the head of Goliath the
Gargoyle, sitting ever vigil by his door. Then, finally, he slipped into his abode. Kicking aside a
heap of letters, he smacked the lights on with his new arm cast. The walls were camouflaged in
Cherokee buckskins, the floor was infested with wooden models, and in the middle of the room his
hammock was intertwined with cybersphere equipment.
King of the bachelors, he thought. Tiptoeing around the wooden models, Agateno took off what
clothes he could and fell into his hammock.
He slept long and, as usual, suffered nightmares. Then he was awake. Back in the hammock,
which for some reason was swaying. The source of the locomotion was a foot pushing against
Agateno's buttock through the hammock's netting. When investigated, the tootsie was revealed to
belong to Yaba Hallsdottir 1278 AD, his drug dealer.
A shortish, skinny woman, Yaba had bronze skin, wavy, shoulder-length strawberry blonde hair
with Viking braids, and a strong epicanthic fold about her smoke grey eyes. There were scar marks
around her mouth and she wore a burgundy bedizen, a mix of a deel and a long tunic, with crme
opium poppy patterns on it. Beside the sofa she was sitting on was a wet feathered war bonnet. In
her lap was one of Agateno's wooden models, Xenos, God of Alien, a pink tentacle woman.
'Hello,' she said relaxedly, her Mongking accent adding a minor huskiness to her voice.
'Hello,' Agateno said, rubbing his eyes.
'You were moaning, seemed like a mercy to wake you.'
'Yeah, thanks.'
Yaba turned the wooden model in her hands. 'You look like shit.'
Agateno chuckled. 'Haven't had my coffee yet.'
'Awh.' Her smile was close-lipped. 'Who was it this time?'
'Futurians, gangstars, the medicine man got some licks in during the operation too.'
'Gangstars. Drakon and Demon?'
'Bingo.'
She nodded. 'They're difficult. You want some poppy?'
'No, no opium for a while. Medicine man's orders.'
'Pity. Twentieth century Afghans have started producing again. They're good, if unreliable.'
'Oh.... Hey, how did you get past the commissaries?'
'Bought them. It's gotten easy since the budget cuts.'
Not if you're out to buy a Susumu, he thought. 'So is this a new craze of yours, breaking into
people's apartments?'
'No, one-off hopefully. It was a bitch finding out where you live.' She surveyed the room. 'The
Festival of Need Shopping Mall and Apartment Complex.'
'You don't like it?'
'Not at all, it's quirky. Very you. Stored a camera in your wall a few weeks ago so I would know
when you were back.'
'Right. Creepy.'
'Before anything else, can I buy this?' She held up the Xenos model.
'You can have it for free, I've got copies.'
'No. You should never give anything worthwhile away. It insults the producer.'
'You're such a marketeer.'
Getting out a ten wampound note, Yaba offered it. 'Hippies need to eat too. It's not like you're
making week's meat by ditching snatcher-for-hire jobs.'
Agateno hesitated, and then accepted the money, moving carefully so as not to irritate his
injuries.

In the succeeding quiet Yaba set fire to a cigarette and savoured the flavour. 'Idiot.' She let the
word hang in the hazy air for a moment before carrying on. 'So what happened? I recommend you
for a job to the richest guy in Teal Towers, next thing I know you've vanished.'
'A very unfortunate series of events.' He stared at the ceiling. 'Started off kosher enough. Vang
said his business was getting muscled in on by some kingpin in the Undercity, so he wanted me to
snatch the guy and bring him to him. Simple. I went down there and snatched him without much
hassle, turns out he was a Futurian.'
'No shit?'
'I know. Apparently there's been an influx of Futurians since the end of the war. For all their
propaganda, their time empires really aren't doing well. Anyway, I handed the kingpin over to Vang,
and you know what he did?' Yaba spread upturned hands. 'Overlord Vang took out a silver foil like
he was about to chop the kingpin to pieces.'
Yaba grimaced and rested her cheek on her fist. 'I see.'
'He even looked surprised when I jumped in to rescue the poor guy. Like he thought I must have
hated Futurians as much as he did, being who I am.... I managed to escape with the kingpin,
dropped him off at a commissary station. Since then I've sort of been drifting, hiding from Vang's
bounty hunters.' He regarded Yaba. 'Did you know Vang wanted to kill that kingpin?' She nodded.
'Why keep it from me, Yaba?'
'You wouldn't have taken the job if you'd known. I didn't anticipate Vang to try to execute him
while you were there. Maybe he was trying to impress you.'
'Gods above.'
'You are a war he'
'I'm a snatcher-for-hire! I was a snatcher in the war, I've never killed anyone in my life! I
timeport in, I suspend people in time, I bring them in for incarceration, that's it! The idea of killing
sickens me...! Why would you put me in the position to help kill someone, Yaba?'
Using her cigarette, Yaba set the Xenos model alight. 'The money from that job could have paid
for the best reconstructive surgery in Teal Towers. With your own hard work you could have been
beautiful again.' The flames startled licking her hand, so she blew the little blaze out in a smoky
puff, leaving a husk of a model. 'Three years ago you saved this city, yet here you are, on ground
level, with a stitch-job body the city is too cheap to restore. You deserve better, and I want better for
you.' She crushed the charred Xenos between her fingers. 'But you're right, in trying to help I put
you at odds with your principles. Sorry.'
Agateno tried to hate Yaba, but found himself wanting in resolve. 'Yeah, well, you're not the
first.'
'Vang wants you punished by the way.'
'I'd guessed that much. Lucky I was wearing my hood when I met him, the gangstars were basing
their search on an old TIME cover.'
'Give me an hour to talk him down. I'll tell him what you've told me and at worst you'll have to
give the retainer fee back and apologise to him.'
'Apologise for what?'
'Insulting his honour. Mongkings are big on honour.' Agateno raised an eyebrow. 'I'm not a
conventional Mongking.'
'You're not a conventional anything.'
'Said the pot to the kettle.'
They snickered. Agateno sat up in his hammock.
'What I said before, about me drifting until now, that wasn't exactly true. I've been trying to find my
peaceful spot.'
'Any loot?'
He shook his head. 'In 839 AD I saw a little Teotlsayyad girl dancing in a field of rye. She was
dressed up as Miasma, God of Dead, wings and everything. It was cute. I came back the next day
and the local farmers were timeporting into the field, impaling themselves on the blades of rye. I
found out later that the little girl wasn't playing dress-up, she was an incarnate. To the Teotlsayyad,

she was Miasma, and her dancing in that field was a call for sacrifice.... A week later I was in 1430
AD, on a trackless train to see my cousins. Near the coast the train picked up a group of people,
they said they were escaped forced workers from some Aryan dimensional year. We all pitched in
and bought them a first class coach to stay in for the rest of the trip. Then when we were asleep they
snatched a bunch of kids in the next coach over. We managed to track down one of them and rescue
the kid, but the rest got away. They weren't forced workers at all, they were exactly the opposite,
Aryan taskmasters on the prowl for new forced workers.... I tried 3,981,362 BC after that, beautiful
dimensional year. Wild, untouched. I ended up making friends with some hairy blokes, prehumans I
mean. They were cool, there was something about them, made me want to meditate around them...'
Agateno's free fist clenched. 'Most of them were shot down by a Futurian fighter aircraft that came
gunning for me. All I could do was try to draw it away from the survivors.... So no, I haven't found
my peaceful spot. Might be I never will. Can't save people from the violent spots either.'
Yaba moved onto the hammock and placed Agateno's head on her lap. 'You can't save everyone,
Agateno, you've done enough.'
'Thought for sure I'd find my peaceful spot after the war.'
She caressed his hair.
Yaba put on her feathered war bonnet to go. 'You still running around with that commissary
chick?'
'Yep. She carried me to the hospital-hut, confiscated my opium while she was at it.'
'Narc. Tell her thank you and fuck you from me.'
'Will do.'
Yaba opened the door. The light rain had turned into a thunderstorm. Teal Towers was black and
blue. Outside were four of Yaba's escorts, each wearing a bedizen nearly identical to her own along
with a rice hat. The biggest placed an umbrella over her head.
'Thanks.' She glanced at Agateno. 'Call me if you need anything.'
'Sure.'
She left through the falling water.