Acme Time Travel Incorporated - Volume 2

SEG002

Gabriel and Ginny had got up and had some coffee and croissants.

“Even if ACME INC has gone bust, they still provide some nice food,” Gabriel said.

He was trying to cheer Ginny up, but she still seemed to be distant.

“Patty’s outside,” Ship said. “Shall I open up the comms-link?”

“Yes, thanks,” said Ginny.

They saw Patty standing outside their ship. He wasn’t close to the hull this time; seemingly he had less optimism about being invited in.

“Morning Patty,” Ginny said.

“Morning, guys. You getting ready to leave today?”

“We were thinking about using the teleport,” Ginny said.

“Oh, yeah, well, ok,” Patty said. “I can do that for you. I can stop the processing for a bit. Let you go through.”

“That’s great, Patty,” Ginny said.

“But you’d have to be careful the other end, ’cos as soon as a shipment goes through, the machinery at the other end will unload it, and ...”

“Yeah, but Steve and Roy, they ...” Gabriel said.

Patty laughed. “Yeah, them guys,” he said. “They certainly ...”

“Ok Patty, Ginny said, cutting off whatever Patty was about to say. “How about we see you at the teleport in one hour? Can you get the processing stopped so we can go through?”

“Yeah, sure, Ginny. I’ll get it all ready for you.”

“Thanks, Patty.”

“Shall I close the comms-link Ginny?”

“Please, Ship.”

“It’s closed, Ginny.”

“Thank you.”

“I’ll start getting my gear,” Gabriel said. He turned and walked towards their bedroom. He felt Ginny was being incredibly rude to Patty, who seemed to do his best to help them. He had never seen her be rude or unkind to anyone before, so he didn’t understand why she should act like that now.

. . . . . . . .

They met Patty at the teleport. Gabriel had shoved a few things into a backpack he had requested. He had carefully pushed in his copy of SEG’s transhipment journal. Ginny couldn’t think of anything she wanted to take with her.

“Looks like he’s stopped all the processing,” Gabriel said.

Ginny looked around. The heavy machinery which seemed to be continually lifting, pushing or pulling things about was all stationary. Patty was standing next to the entrance to the teleport looking incredibly pleased with himself. They stood next to Patty.

“Step right in,” Patty said, beckoning them towards the open doors into the teleport.

“You’re sure the processing won’t start again while we’re in there?” Gabriel said.

Patty brushed past Gabriel, smiled, and slipped something small into Gabriel’s backpack as he went. Gabriel didn’t notice, and Ginny was looking nervously into the teleport bay.

Patty stepped into the teleport bay. The bay was enormous. It needed to accommodate quite a few shipping containers, which the machinery would stack neatly against each other. They had seen it stacked two containers high. The processing would fill the bay with twelve containers, the doors would close, and seconds later the doors would open, and the process would begin again.

Patty danced around the bay. He beckoned them in.

Gabriel looked at Ginny. She was staring fearfully at Patty.

Patty looked across at them from the back wall of the teleport bay. He smiled at them. A strange, tortured grimace of a smile. Ginny heard a noise behind her. A container had resumed its stately progress towards the bay. Ginny grabbed Gabriel and pulled him to one side as the container pushed past them.

“Get out of there, Patty,” Gabriel shouted.

Patty was still dancing around the bay; strange pirouettes, his laughter coming loudly across the comms-link.

“Get the hell out ... or turn the bloody thing off,” Gabriel shouted.

The container pushed through the open doors of the bay. It slid along towards a back wall. Patty had suddenly become aware that the processing had re-started. He was standing by the back wall. He lifted an arm and began pressing at a control pad on the sleeve of his suit.

More containers were being pushed into the bay, being automatically manoeuvred so as to fill the space. Patty ran from side to side, punching at the control pad, dodging around the containers. His available space was becoming smaller and smaller. He looked across at Gabriel and Ginny. He began laughing again, but a container caught his foot, trapping him, stopping him from moving any further. His laughter turned to screams. A container was being shunted sideways towards him, and he had nowhere to go. The container slammed into place, and his screams stopped instantly.

Gabriel looked at Ginny. She was staring at the place where Patty had been standing. A river of blood was running from under the last container. Gabriel caught her arm and moved her to one side of the teleport bay. He walked her slowly away from the teleport, back along a maintenance walkway, away from the continuing sounds of the containers being shunted into place.

. . . . . . . .

“Do you want a drink, or anything?” Gabriel asked.

Ginny was sitting in her cockpit seat. She was staring at the instrumentation panel.

“I think I might have a hot chocolate,” Gabriel said.

“I wonder if the machine can get toasted muffins?” he mused into the silence following his last question to Ginny.

“How many would you like,” Ship asked.

Ginny laughed. It wasn’t a pleasant laugh, but it was a laugh.

Gabriel wasn’t sure whether or not to feel encouraged.

“Four please,” Gabriel said. “And two hot chocolates, please.”

“I don’t think I want to try the teleport now,” Ginny said.

“No, I don’t think we should.”

“I wonder if he realised it would start up again?” she said.

“I don’t know. Do you think he had any reason to want to kill himself ... and in such a gruesome way?”

“There’re worse ways,” Ginny said.

“I guess so,” said Gabriel, but not being able to think of any right at that moment.

“So, I think we will have to trust that the Ramstats will get us back to Earth,” Ginny said.

“Looks that way.”

“The toasted muffins and hot chocolates are ready,” Ship announced.

“Well, that’s something,” Gabriel said.