October 31st 2072, 13:53 Greenwich Mean Time, Timeline 6, The Lounge, Cloudbase
In Cloudbase, Spectrum agents Captain Scarlet and Captain Blue were enjoying an unusually quiet day in the Lounge over a cup of coffee. A veteran of the World Space Patrol, Captain Blue was born Steven Zodiac in the domed city of Kahra, where his father served as a Director in the Universal Secret Service’s off-planet bureau. His best friend and closest colleague was Paul Metcalfe, British born from a family with a long and illustrious military pedigree. He was code-named Captain Scarlet, information which, unusually, had been revealed to him by a mysterious and ill-intentioned time traveller.
Captain Blue was Captain Scarlet’s closest work colleague best friend in the world. While on duty, were seldom seen apart and the number of missions where they worked alone or with other Spectrum colleagues could be counted on the fingers of one hand.
One of those missions was the celebration for the signing of the Friendship Treaty between Earth and the Mysterons of Mars. For some strange reason, the Mysteron Ambassador had forbidden Captain Scarlet from attending. This was all the harder to understand, given the crucial role that Scarlet had had during the first conflict crisis. Captain Blue had all but given the order to fire on the Mysterons’ Martian Complex when he misinterpreted their actions as hostile. It was Scarlet who encouraged restraint and led to the misunderstanding being resolved, leading to the Friendship Treaty.
The Martian Ambassador was a strange one, that was for sure – he had never been photographed and only those who met him personally ever knew what he looked like – but his inexplicable and unreasonable intransigence over Captain Scarlet had taken much of the shine from the overtures of Mysteron friendship as far as Spectrum were concerned.
The two Captains sat in the Lounge in companionable silence savouring the smell and taste of good coffee, when Captain Blue said genially, “Penny for your thoughts, Paul?”
Scarlet started and looked up, shaking himself out of his reverie. “Sorry, Steve, what did you say?”
Blue laughed out loud and said, “No more questions, your honour!”
Scarlet smiled wistfully, “For some reason, I was thinking about Conrad and that strange Hallowe’en night in my apartment all those years ago. We never did get to the bottom of who that weird man was and why he tried to kill me.”
“And you still have no idea who that was?”
“I won’t deny that there was something familiar about him,” mused Scarlet, “but it was dark, and I had been drinking.” He laughed to himself then frowned. “It’s funny, you know... his voice reminds me a little of the Voice of the Mysterons.” Scarlet fell silent.
After a few moments, Blue broke the silence. “Yeah, but it can’t really be that, can it? We hadn’t met the Mysterons at that time.” Changing the subject slightly, Blue said, “Say, you never did tell me why Conrad called that night.”
“I don’t really know, to be honest,” replied Scarlet. “Conrad had just finished the work of overseeing the construction of Cloudbase and had successfully piloted the whole thing into the Earth’s atmosphere. I can only assume that he called to see how I had got on in my Spectrum selection interview... but he saved my life at the expense of his own.” Scarlet paused. “That’s just the type of guy he was.”
Blue put his coffee down and leaned forward. “Yeah...his disappearance meant that I was moved into the frame for the Zero-X mission to Mars. Talk about filling dead men’s shoes! Conrad was a tough act to follow, in the WSP as well as Spectrum. That’s why I insisted that you be allowed to come to Mars with me as well. I don’t think I would have handled that unexpected first contact situation with the Mysterons as well as I did if you hadn’t been there with me.”
Suddenly a dark voice echoed around the room.
“This is the voice of the Mysterons. We know that you can hear us, Earthmen. We remain grateful for the friendship and co-operation that has evolved between our two peoples from the first contact meeting held between us and the crew of the Zero-X expedition at our Martian complex until the present day. The Mysterons request that our Ambassador to your planet be granted an immediate meeting with Colonel White from Spectrum on your Cloudbase.
“We seek your assistance in the understanding of strange ripple effects in the time continuum, that we have been studying for nineteen of your years, without any success. Please help us with time.”
Captain Blue looked at Captain Scarlet, his eyes wide. “Immediate? I wonder what’s got them so antsy today. That’s not like the Mysterons. They’re a bit stuffy and that voice...” He blew out of the side of his mouth in mock exasperation. “... but they’re usually so measured in what they say and how they act.”
“It’s different, Steve, I’ll give you that,” replied Captain Scarlet thoughtfully, “very odd indeed. If the Mysterons are struggling with something, you can bet that it is nothing good.” The two colleagues looked each other in the eye and nodded at the same time.
“Dead right”, said Captain Blue cheerfully, clearly understanding the look on Scarlet’s face. “We’d better get up there and see what is going on.”
xXxXxXx
October 31st 2072, 13:54 Greenwich Mean Time, Timeline 6 – Loop 1, The Department of Theoretical Temporal Physics, Ottawa
“What happened? You were only gone for about a minute.”
The man on the temporal platform looked confused and swayed awkwardly on his feet but didn’t fall. Professor Abel Carberry, the Head of the Department of Theoretical Temporal Physics ran over to him from the control console and steadied him. “Mr Ambassador... are you OK?”
The man recovered slightly and looked even more confused as he tried to reign in his thoughts. The last thing he remembered was... What was the last thing he remembered... there was a light... what happened before the light... he was in a fight... he was... he was with Captain Scarlet... in...
2066! It was 2066. He knew that now and used that thought to anchor himself in the present, whenever that was.
Fixing his gaze on Carberry, he spoke, his voice coming out as a thick, rasping and vaguely menacing monotone. “What year is it?” he demanded.
“It’s 2072, Mr Ambassador. Don’t you remember? As part of the Earth/Mysteron Exchange Programme, I had asked the Mysterons if there were any Martian minerals that could help to power our prototype time platform.”
Earth/Mysteron Exchange Programme? The man forced himself to focus. And he remembered. “Malachandrite... Did I acquire any malachandrite for you?” He looked squarely into the young academic’s face as if it were the first time he was really seeing him. “You are Abel Carberry.” He intoned without emotion. “I did acquire malachandrite for you. For your temporal platform. You are the vehicle the Mysterons are using to exact their revenge against the Earth.”
“Mr Ambassador, please... Here, sit down... have some water.” Carberry gingerly left the man balancing precariously on an office chair as he dashed over to the water cooler, not taking his eyes off him. He quickly poured a glass of fresh water into a plastic cup and ran back to where the man was sitting. Carberry looked at him with intense concern.
“What are you talking about, Mr Ambassador? Your trip into the past seems to have left you a little confused. The people of Earth and the Mysterons from Mars are friends. Have been for years! Don’t you remember the Zero-X Mission to Mars? Two Spectrum captains initiated first contact protocols with the Mysterons and brokered a treaty of friendship.”
The man previously known as Captain Black, a former Spectrum agent now working as the agent of the Mysterons, the sworn enemies of Earth, gradually regained his composure. His mind began to clear and his thoughts took on a measure of clarity and order.
Captain Black started to remember more details of what had happened before being in Paul Metcalfe’s apartment in 2066. He could now clearly recall leaving 2072 using Carberry’s prototype time platform with the Mysterons’ bold plan to destroy Spectrum in time firing his mind.
Yes! He remembered it all now! Black had taken a perverse pleasure in killing both Colonel White and Captain Ochre, as well as in derailing Captain Blue’s timeline so that he would never be able to provide that stalwart support to his accursed nemesis, Captain Scarlet. He also remembered his working relationship with Titan’s Surface Agent X-2-Zero and smiled grimly at the chaos their partnership had been able to sow among the affairs of the Earthmen. He nodded to himself with satisfaction.
As his mind cleared, he became increasingly aware of his surroundings. He looked Carberry up and down. This was not the man he remembered. For a start, he was clean-shaven, well-groomed and neatly dressed in a clean white labcoat over his crisp shirt and tie, looking every inch the professional scientist, not the dishevelled wretch he had left a moment ago. As Carberry had experienced it, at least, Black mused.
And this laboratory... This was a well-funded and optimally functioning state-of-the art facility. This was not the laboratory he had left nineteen years ago. That laboratory had been ramshackle and held together with baling twine and a few paper clips, but it was enough to do what he had intended. But why did it now seem so different?
And this machine... The machine was sleek, well-designed and both ergonomically efficient and aesthetically pleasing. He considered it with a sense of appreciation. He then frowned at it with a vague sense of recognition. It almost looked as if...
“When did the Mysterons assist you in the development of this machine, Professor Carberry?” he demanded suddenly.
Carberry, a little reassured that the Ambassador was coming back to normal, relaxed slightly and said, “Sir, please remember. It was you who initiated the Earth/Mysterons Exchange Programme back in 2067 after first contact. It was you who approved Mysteron collaboration in my time platform programme in 2069. And it was only last year that you approved the supply of malachandrite for the power source. You also authorised the use of Mysteron technology in the construction of the hardware for the temporal platform.”
Captain Black absorbed the new information carefully as Carberry babbled on.
“I have been very grateful to you, Mr Ambassador, for the interest you have taken in my work. That is why I was honoured when you asked to inspect it personally. You did freak me out just there now when you accidentally activated it, but you seem to have returned without injury to yourself, apart from the confusion, or damage to the timeline.”
Carberry realised that he was talking too much. He stopped. He looked at the Mysteron Ambassador and was more satisfied that he was more like his old self. The Martian Ambassador was about 60, tall, grey-haired, of sallow complexion and was dressed in his customary black ceremonial robes.
Captain Black considered the curious Earthman as he spoke. Mr Ambassador? Black stood up, embracing the role that seemed to have been dealt to him. Reaching out with his mind to the Mysterons on Mars, he heard a sinister monotonous voice reply in his head.
“Captain Black, this is the Voice of the Mysterons. Your mission in time did not destroy Spectrum as we had anticipated. Your actions have created a new timeline in which the Mysterons and the Earthmen are at peace. Your altercation with your younger self has propelled you forward in time, almost to the exact moment you left. The Mysterons have used the vestiges of the being you used to be and have brought you to the newest timeline, to make you the Mysteron Ambassador to Earth.
“However, your mission has had other repercussions that we did not foresee. The feedback from your return triggered the destruction of our Martian Complex sixty-four minutes later, returning you to the same point in another new timeline. Time is trapped in a loop, which is gradually destroying the space-time continuum. The events of the next sixty-four minutes, leading to the destruction of our Martian Complex, will repeat themselves until time itself is destroyed. You do not remember, but this has happened before. And it will happen again. The confusion you have experienced will lessen each time the timeline is reset and you will retain memories that will help you to save the Mysterons. Go to Spectrum. They are expecting you and will help you in your mission. Captain Black, only you can stop this from happening.”
Black looked at the clock on Carberry’s desk. 14:57. “When did I get back?” he demanded in his familiar sepulchral tones. Carberry opened his mouth in stunned silence. “How many minutes?” growled the Mysteron Ambassador, urgency tempering the speed of his usual monotone.
Flustered at the Ambassador’s out-of-character brusqueness, Carberry ran over to the machine and checked a number of dials. Without looking up, he shouted over to Black, “You got back at 13:54, Mr Ambassador.”
Captain Black nodded, calculating that if the message from the Mysterons was true, then before the next reset they had... damn! Just one minute. He cocked his head in curiosity, watching and waiting for the 7 on the timepiece to turn to an 8. He never did see that particular transition on the timepiece as he had to shield his eyes from a bright, ethereal green glow...
October 31st 2072, 13:54 Greenwich Mean Time, Timeline 6 – Loop 2, The Department of Theoretical Temporal Physics, Ottawa
...As he reappeared on the time platform in front of a mightily relieved Abel Carberry, who was delighted that the Mysteron Ambassador had returned so quickly from his foray into the timestream without apparent injury to himself or damage to the timeline.
“What happened? You were only gone for about a minute.”
The Mysteron Ambassador stood on the temporal platform looking confused and swayed awkwardly on his feet but didn’t fall. Professor Abel Carberry, the Head of the Department of Theoretical Temporal Physics ran over to him from the control consul and steadied him. “Mr Ambassador... are you OK?”
The Mysteron Ambassador recovered more quickly as the Mysterons had predicted. He looked intently at Abel Carberry and vanished into thin air, leaving the temporal physicist with his arms half-raised and a questioning and confused look on his face. Carberry was well used to the Mysteron Ambassador appearing and disappearing. It was always a shock when he appeared, but he generally had taken his leave before popping off again! Carberry shrugged his shoulders and trotted over to the main console to review any impact that the Ambassador’s foolhardy action had inflicted on the timeline.
Captain Black rematerialized in one of the ancillary cupboards on Cloudbase. Although the Mysterons had told him that he was expected, he did consider that that particular eventuality may have been somewhere between overstated and far-fetched.
While Black retained the memories of his life during his nineteen years travelling through time, he also still had the memories of the Earthman and Spectrum Agent that Conrad Turner had once been in the prime timeline. That included the access codes to the Cloudbase armouries. Despite his prodigious Mysteron abilities, he did feel uncomfortable being on Cloudbase without a weapon. He padded stealthily along one corridor then another, but there were Spectrum personnel milling around the first three armouries he checked.
Carrying on in his quest, he paused to look furtively around the next corner to see if anyone was hanging around the next armoury he was heading for. There wasn’t. Excellent.
Just before he could make his move, he heard a voice behind him. “Say, can I help you?”
Captain Black wheeled sharply and stared into the face of a man in his mid to late thirties clad in a yellowy-brown Spectrum uniform. Black had never seen this man’s face before, but he assumed from his attire that this must have been Captain Ochre, the head of Spectrum Intelligence.
“Ah, yes, Captain... Ochre. I am the Mysteron Ambassador to Earth,” he intoned in the voice that Ochre recognised instantly, although like most people on Earth, he had never seen the Ambassador’s face before. “I believe that Colonel White is expecting me. I appear to have mistimed my arrival and have materialised in the wrong location. I am afraid that I am... lost.”
“I’m sure that happens all the time, sir,” said Captain Ochre doubtfully. “If you wish, I can escort you to Colonel White’s office.”
Captain Black studied Captain Ochre intently. He had absolutely no idea who this man was, although he did reason to himself that it was logical that Spectrum would replace Richard Fraser as Captain Ochre, who had been killed in Captain Black’s successful assassination mission to Chicago in 2061.
Black would not have known that this new Captain Ochre was born Scott Tracy, the son of a celebrated astronaut, as well as being an accomplished astronaut himself. Scott’s father, Jeff Tracy, was the visionary behind International Rescue, the clandestine vigilante group who saw it as their self-appointed mission to monitor the Earth for people in dire need or danger and to save their lives, seemingly for no reward or monetary return.
Penelope Creighton-Ward had built up a significant reputation within the intelligence networks and it had long been suspected that she was part of the International Rescue operative network. Creighton-Ward had been approached to set up a meeting between Colonel White, the Commander-in-Chief of Spectrum, and the shadowy leader of International Rescue. Despite all her protestations to the contrary, the Universal Secret Service had clearly demonstrated that it knew all about her links to International Rescue. Colonel White had been in touch with her to convince her of his sincerity in wanting to forge some links of his own with that organisation, without compromising the important work that International Rescue undertook.
Reluctantly, Penelope arranged for Jeff Tracy to meet face-to-face with Colonel White at her Australian sheep farm under the pretext of Tracy going on vacation. Colonel White and Tracy didn’t particularly hit it off all that well, but Tracy came to see the wisdom of what White was suggesting and agreed to give serious consideration to the matter.
While Tracy was away from International Rescue’s island base, Scott had coordinated what he felt had been a successful rescue mission at the oil rig Seascape. When Tracy had checked in with International Rescue headquarters, he and Scott had a furious argument because Tracy was adamant that the operation had been an unnecessary use of resources and time. While Scott was still licking his wounds, the situation at Seascape deteriorated rapidly and it turned out that mobilising the Thunderbirds had proved to be necessary. Tracy had to eat humble pie and apologise for not trusting his son’s judgement. The experience had actually given Scott the taste for strategic work as opposed to the operational side of the job.
It was a few days later that Tracy discussed privately with Scott about Colonel White’s proposal that one of Tracy’s International Rescue operatives should liaise with the World Government through Spectrum. Scott, having enjoyed running the show while his father was ostensibly on vacation, leapt immediately at the chance, even though it meant ceding the control of his beloved Thunderbird 1 to his younger brother, Alan.
However, Scott had participated in a number of rescues while on leave from Spectrum, but Colonel White did not know that. Or at least Scott hoped he didn’t! Scott reflected darkly that what the colonel didn’t know shouldn’t do him any harm.
“That would be very kind of you,” droned the perceived Mysteron Ambassador. “Pardon me, Captain Ochre, but would you be good enough to tell me the time?”
“Certainly, sir,” replied Ochre genially, consulting his wrist chronometer. “It is 14:51.”
Captain Black sighed. “And how long does it take to get to Colonel White’s office from here?”
“I am not sure, sir,” said Captain Ochre thoughtfully, “maybe a walk of about six or seven minutes.”
Black nodded imperceptibly, then he and Captain Ochre walked in companionable silence for a few more minutes until the Spectrum captain and Cloudbase disappeared in a bright, ethereal green glow...
October 31st 2072, 13:54 Greenwich Mean Time, Timeline 6 – Loop 3, The Department of Theoretical Temporal Physics, Ottawa
... As he reappeared on the time platform in front of a mightily relieved Abel Carberry. He had been frantic when the Mysteron Ambassador had accessed the temporal platform but calmed appreciably when the Mysteron Ambassador had returned so quickly from his accidental foray into the timestream without apparent injury to himself or damage to the timeline.
“What happened? You were only gone for about a minute.”
The Mysteron Ambassador stepped off the temporal platform and swayed awkwardly on his feet but didn’t fall. Carberry ran over to him from the control consul and steadied him. “Mr Ambassador... are you OK?”
Captain Black recovered almost immediately, gave Carberry a withering look, and disappeared into thin air, leaving the temporal physicist with his arms half-raised and a questioning and confused look on his face. What did I do to deserve a look like that? Carberry shrugged his shoulders and trotted over to the main console to review any impact that the Ambassador’s foolhardy action had inflicted on the timeline.
This time, Captain Black appeared in the Operations Room of Cloudbase.
Lieutenant Green gasped audibly as a pale man dressed in black ambassadorial robes appeared right in front of her.
Black had a double take at the impressive human woman wearing a green Spectrum uniform sitting at Lieutenant Green’s workstation. Taking immediate control of the situation, Black paused for effect and said, “Do not be alarmed, Lieutenant Green. I am the Mysteron Ambassador. I believe that Colonel White is expecting me.”
Lieutenant Green laughed in relief and said, “He certainly is, sir, and if you don’t mind me saying so, you sure do know how to make an entrance, Mr Ambassador.”
Black paused again... this time because he reflected that although the situation faced by the Mysterons was grim, there was a strange part of him that was beginning to enjoy this adventure.
He smiled at Lieutenant Green – although, looking at it, the Spectrum Communications and Technology Officer reckoned that it looked more like the grimace of a hungry crocodile – and remarked, “I certainly do, Lieutenant Green, I certainly do.”
Lieutenant Green pressed the intercom button at the end of her workstation. “Colonel White, sir?”
“What is it, Serena?” came the bluff reply.
“The Mysteron Ambassador is here to see you, sir.”
“What? That was quick. Better send him in, then.”
“The colonel will see you now, sir.”
“Thank you, Lieutenant Green”, intoned the Mysteron Ambassador as he walked through the doorway that swooshed open to receive him into the inner sanctum of the Supreme Commander of Spectrum. It was a room that Captain Black had never expected to see again, and certainly not with the figure seated behind the desk.
Colonel White in another time and another place was formerly Commander Sam Shore of the World Aquanaut Security Patrol. Ten years previously, Shore had lost use of his legs in an encounter with a strange being he had dubbed “The Ghost of the Sea”. The Ghost had destroyed one of the Pacific cobalt mining rigs just before he was intercepted by Shore, then a Captain in the WASPs.
In the resulting encounter, both Shore’s ship and the Ghost’s ship were destroyed. Despite interfering with the Ghost’s plans, Shore had vague recollections of the Ghost rescuing him and depositing him safely on a beach in Ecuador. It was always a source of great frustration that he had never got to the bottom of who the Ghost was and what he wanted.
Using a hoverchair now, Shore had been promoted to the position of Commander of Marineville a matter of weeks before it was destroyed by the attack by Titan on the West Coast of the United States in October 2062. Titan’s assault on the San Andreas fault using the hitherto unknown assault power of a big gun, led to most of the Californian coast being swallowed up by the sea. The Commander’s personal losses that day made him more than willing to take up the offer of becoming Commander-in-Chief of the new world security force, Spectrum, in late 2064.
It took three years of driven work to bring Spectrum online and, not long after Spectrum was constituted in July 2067, the Zero-X mission undertaken by Captains Scarlet and Blue led to first contact with the Mysterons. Spectrum was at the forefront of negotiating a treaty of friendship that included information and technology sharing. The Mysterons were strangely aloof, but Colonel White had always found his dealings with them to be skewed a little by the shabby way they had treated Captain Scarlet during the arrangements for Friendship Treaty signing celebration.
The Mysteron Ambassador cast a furtive glace at the old-fashioned clock on the wall. 14:11.
Colonel White took in the action and said, “You in a hurry, Mr Ambassador? What is so important to the Mysterons that it can’t wait to be dealt with through the proper channels?”
The Mysteron Ambassador locked eyes with Colonel White. “There has been a serious and complex threat levelled by Earth against the Mysterons. I have come to petition Spectrum for assistance.”
Colonel White unflinchingly held the Ambassador’s state. “That’s a mighty big claim, Mr Ambassador. I take it that you have proof I can take upstairs?”
“No, I am sorry Colonel White, I do not,” intoned the Ambassador. Not looking away from Colonel White, Captain Black said, “Colonel White, do you trust me?”
“Hard to say, sir,” replied Colonel White thoughtfully, “I don’t really know you. We met only that one time, when we signed the Friendship Accords on Kahra Base in January 2068. Just for the record... sir... I was really pissed off that you excluded Captain Scarlet from those proceedings. I had to be there, but I tell you, I didn’t really want to go. And it was only Captain Scarlet’s insistence that made Captain Blue attend as well.”
Captain Black was taken aback at this. There was still so much about this timeline that he did not know or understand. He had realised that although the Mysterons were being destroyed every 64 minutes, he really had all the time in the world to sort this. He decided that he should not really rush things and that every time loop would yield more intelligence each time it happened.
Clearly, the Mysteron Ambassador he had become in this timeline was sufficiently different in looks from Conrad Turner that most people, such as Colonel White, didn’t recognise him. However, the Mysteron Ambassador seems to have known that Captain Scarlet could identify him as the man who attacked him, back in 2066. Black realised that he had to try and avoid contact of any kind with Scarlet before he found a way to break the cycle of time loops and save the Mysterons.
Captain Black cast another furtive glace towards the clock on the wall. 14:26. “Say, why do you keep looking at the time, Mr Ambassador?” asked Colonel White almost playfully.
The Mysteron Ambassador ignored the... was that a taunt? There was so much about the nuances of human behaviour that he had neglected for such a long time. He knew that he needed to change tack and quickly. “What do you feel about the value of the Earth/Mysterons Exchange Programme, Colonel White?”
“Well,” said the colonel, “that is a good thing, I suppose. I am sorry, Mr Ambassador, but it is my job to be suspicious of everybody, so please forgive me if I am a little sceptical at what we are doing today. I don’t understand you people and that just makes me a little skittish, especially as you have never been known for your sense of urgency.”
“The programme, Colonel,” interrupted the Ambassador. “Is it any good?”
“Absolutely, Mr Ambassador,” conceded Colonel White. “We get a much better return on the anti-gravs that keep Cloudbase up in the sky. And the performance of the Angel Interceptors and the performance of the Pursuit and Maximum Security Vehicles is greatly improved, thanks to all that research into the new minerals of your home planet. I am particularly pleased that my former baby, the Stingray Initiative, is making progress and could eventually be reinstated. But what has all that got to do with this threat of yours against the Mysterons?”
“So, friendship with the Mysterons is of value to the Earthmen?”
“Of course, it is, Mr Ambassador,” said White in a more conciliatory tone. He smiled. “Sometimes, even the best of friends piss one another off.” He paused. “Now, can you tell me anything about this threat to the Mysterons and how we can help you?”
Another glance. 14:29. The Mysteron Ambassador steeled himself. “Colonel, would you believe me if I told you that the timeline is broken and that you and I are currently in a time loop? In another 29 minutes, the Mysterons Martian Complex will be destroyed, and the resultant explosion will reset the timeline back to that last message the Mysterons gave you.”
White sat back in his hoverchair and studied the Mysteron Ambassador. “No, I wouldn’t,” he said thoughtfully. “Is that what the last message from the Mysterons was about? I am not sure how we can help the Mysterons with these... what... time ripples? If your finest minds have been looking at that for the last nineteen years, what have we got that we can bring to the party?”
“Indulge me, Colonel,” said Captain Black, leaning forward like a poker player upping the ante.
His voice certainly would have made the game feel interesting, thought White absently.
“Is there anything that you could reveal to me now... something that nobody could possibly know about you? Something that I could say to you when we meet again in the next loop, that could prove to you that what I am saying is true that you could take...” the word felt distasteful on his tongue, “... upstairs.”
“Look, Mr Ambassador,” interjected Colonel White, “I don’t mean to be rude, but if you think I am going to give you any inside information about me or my organisation, you got another think coming. In fact, if you don’t give me something concrete to go on, I am going to ask you to take yourself out of my office. I will have you forcibly removed if you don’t, Friendship Treaty or no Friendship Treaty.”
Black gave another glance at the clock. 14:37. “Twenty-two minutes, Colonel. A word. A phrase. Anything...” His voice changed its timbre to the point that White could have sworn that, even though this man was the most powerful political and cultural representative on the planet after the President himself, he was almost begging, “... please.”
As Colonel White wondered just where the hell all this was going, he heard it. An underlying hint of panic and fear. The Mysterons were always confident, rational, condescending... this was new. They locked eyes again.
Black looked away only to check the clock again. 14:39. “Nineteen minutes,” he intoned.
“Atlanta.”
Black heard a slight crack in White’s voice as he said the word. Atlanta? His mind raced trying to find some meaning to it. There were some twenty settlements called “Atlanta” in the United States alone. To which could Colonel White be referring? He reflected that there were also a number of ships called “Atlanta”. Was that the name of the ship that Colonel White commanded when he was injured in the line of duty?
White spoke and shook the Mysteron Ambassador out of his reverie. “OK, Mr Ambassador,” he drawled, “so what happens now?”
“Now we wait.” Black glanced again at the clock. 14:42. He was about to say, “Sixteen minutes”, when Colonel White and his office on Cloudbase disappeared in a bright, ethereal green glow...
October 31st 2072, 13:54 Greenwich Mean Time, Timeline 6 – Loop 4, The Department of Theoretical Temporal Physics, Ottawa
... As Captain Black reappeared yet again on the time platform in front of the still mightily relieved Abel Carberry, who was still delighted that he had returned so quickly from his foray into the timestream without apparent injury to himself or damage to the timeline.
“What happened? You were only gone for about a minute.”
Black stood on the temporal platform looking all round him, taking in the whole room as he wrestled with this new development. The Mysterons clearly thought that the time period within the loop would consistently last 64 minutes. The Mysterons were wrong?!
Abel Carberry, the Head of the Department of Theoretical Temporal Physics ran over to him from the control consul and steadied him. “Mr Ambassador... are you OK?”
“The loop...” gasped Captain Black, “it’s getting shorter.”
Stepping back, Carberry said, “Loop? What loop?”
Black quickly recovered his composure, looked intently at Abel Carberry without answering his question and vanished into thin air, leaving the temporal physicist with his arms half-raised and a questioning and confused look on his face. Seriously? What loop? Carberry furrowed his brow and trotted over to the main console to review what the Ambassador had actually done and to satisfy himself that the timeline was secure.
Captain Black’s mind was a whirl. 48 minutes? What has happening to the time loop? Why was it decreasing in length?
He pondered for a few minutes, turning things over in his mind. Yes! Had he been human, Black would have snapped his fingers.
The Mysterons were fearful of damaging the time loop. What if... what if every time he used his Martian gifts, telepathy, teleportation, retrometabolism... what if the Mysteron energy within him was somehow powering the time loop? If that was the battery, Black knew that he was now rapidly running out of time. He realised he had only one course of action left before it was too late: he had to involve Captain Scarlet.
The Mysteron Ambassador suddenly appeared in front of Colonel White.
White spluttered, “Wha... how the hell did you get into my office?” Reaching for the intercom to call Captain Grey to send in security, he stared more intently at the pale man and sat back in recognition. “Oh, it’s you.”
“You do not like me, Colonel, because you feel that I snubbed your Captain Scarlet by excluding him from the signing ceremony of the Friendship Treaty at Kahra”, rumbled the Mysteron Ambassador.
As Colonel White fought back a suitable retort, the Mysteron Ambassador uttered one word. “Atlanta.”
White’s voice hardened like steel. “What did you say?” he almost snarled.
Black stared the colonel out and repeated the word, emphasising each syllable that it sounded like three different words. “At. Lan. Ta. I apologise if I have hurt your feelings, Colonel White. I do not know what this word means, but we have had this conversation before. We are trapped in an ever-decreasing time loop, which finishes each time with the destruction of the Mysteron Complex on Mars. You refused to take the matter ‘upstairs’ without evidence. But you did indulge me, for which I am profoundly grateful, and gave me this code word: Atlanta.”
White stared at the Ambassador open-mouthed.
“Colonel. Please. I am begging you. We do not have much time.”
White stared glassy eyed out the office window. “Atlanta... Atlanta was my daughter. I left her in acting charge of Marineville that day.” He paused to compose himself. “That was the day I left for a meeting with the World Government. I was going to tell them to stick their offer of leadership of Spectrum where the sun doesn’t shine. That was the day that bastard Titan attacked the San Andreas Fault and wrecked the whole of the West Coast. She was my world and my world ended that day. I had no reason to go back to the WASPs and no Marineville to go back to. I didn’t even have a body I could bury. That’s why I made a new start at Spectrum.”
He rounded on Black. “But I value my privacy, mister, how did you get that out of Captain Grey? I’ll kill Tempest when I get my hands on him.”
The Ambassador looked stricken. “I assure you, Colonel, Captain Grey did not betray your confidence. I know that you Earthmen believe that the Mysterons are hard and unfeeling. Yes, the Mysterons are controlled by reason, but we are not without compassion. It was you who revealed her name to me in the previous time loop. I am truly sorry for your loss, but I need to speak to Captain Scarlet. Now.”
White still glared daggers at Captain Black, who chose not to divulge the information that it was actually he who was ultimately responsible for the assault on the West Coast of the United States of America, including Marineville. He reflected ruefully that it was he who had given X-2-Zero the intelligence that enabled Titan to develop the tools to do the deed. As his mind raced, his desperate plan was starting to coalesce. He now understood that he needed to stop himself in the past from changing the timeline.
“Colonel, please.” White did not respond. “Colonel White!” roared the Ambassador. “Please send for Captain Scarlet now. Before it is too late.”
Captain Scarlet and Captain Blue were sitting in the Lounge having coffee when the latest message from the Mysterons came. Scarlet and Blue were already rising to their feet to go to the Conference Room.
“Maybe you’ll get to meet the Mysteron Ambassador through all this,” smirked Captain Blue playfully to his friend as Scarlet glared mock daggers at him. Their friendly banter was interrupted as Colonel White’s raspy voice barked over the intercom: “Captain Scarlet, report to my office immediately.”
In the Lounge, Captain Scarlet looked over at his friend and furrowed his brow. “Well now, I wasn’t expecting that,” said Scarlet, furrowing his brow. “I’d better go.”
“Oh no, you don’t,” retorted Blue, reaching for his cap, “not without me you won’t.” Scarlet smiled and nodded towards the door in agreement.
In Colonel White’s Office, the Mysteron Ambassador spoke again. “Not Captain Blue, Colonel,” he intoned authoritatively. “Just Captain Scarlet.”
In the Lounge, the two friends and colleagues headed for the exit as the colonel’s voice boomed over the intercom again, “Not you, Blue. You stay put!”
“And I wasn’t expecting that!” laughed Blue without humour. “You better not keep me in the dark, good buddy!”
Scarlet frowned thoughtfully, looking decidedly puzzled, then shook his head and strode out the door of the Lounge, not knowing that he would never see his friend again.
Captain Scarlet entered the operations room as Colonel White’s aide-de-camp, Lieutenant Green was busily working over several screens. “Hi Paul,” she said cheerfully, “the colonel said to send you right in as soon as you arrived.”
Scarlet smiled at the tall, attractive Texan woman and said, “Thanks, Serena.”
The door to Colonel White’s office shooshed open as he approached, showing that he was expected. Scarlet stopped at the doorway when he saw that the colonel was not alone. “Oh, sorry, sir. Serena didn’t say you had company. Do you want me to wait outside?”
“The Mysteron Ambassador appeared a few minutes ago, demanding to speak to you. When he does, get him the hell off Cloudbase,” spat Colonel White venomously.
Although confused by the colonel’s demeanour, Scarlet was overcome with a wave of mixed emotions. “The Mysteron Ambassador? It is such a pleasure to meet you, sir, at long last.”
Scarlet was uncharacteristically over-compensating, as he reached out his hand in greeting. The Mysteron Ambassador, standing in front of Colonel White, turned round.
Seeing his face, Scarlet immediately retracted the hand extended in greeting and reached towards his holster. “You? All those years ago, it was you all along!”
The Mysteron Ambassador gestured towards Scarlet, who found that he was rooted to the spot and couldn’t move. “Please sit, Captain Scarlet,” intoned the Mysteron Ambassado. “There is not much time left to save both of our peoples.” He looked at the clock again. 14:21. “Please.”
“Siddown, Paul.” Glaring at Black, Colonel White growled, “You too. Now make your pitch.”
Scarlet was becoming increasingly concerned at the colonel’s involvement in all this. Mind control?
“Captain Scarlet,” began the Mysteron Ambassador, “you are quite correct. It was I who attempted to murder you in 2066.”
White pricked his ears up at that and leaned forward. “Now I really want to hear what the Ambassador has to say for himself,” he said, with more than a hint of menace in his voice.
Black ignored the barb. “Captain Scarlet... Paul,” he began, trying to sound less like a Mysteron and more like a friend, “look closely into my face. Can you see any resemblance of a man you used to know? Please. We don’t have much time.” Time! He chuckled to himself and it was not a cheerful sound!
Setting aside his considerable reservations, Scarlet looked closely at the contours of the Mysteron Ambassador’s face. He had always struggled with the niggling feeling that, somehow, he had known his assailant on that fateful night. However, he had always dismissed that thought, putting it down to the drink and the trauma of seeing his friend, Conrad Turner, vapourised right before his eyes.
A vague sense of recognition flickered at the back of Scarlet’s mind. “Conrad...? Is that...is that really you? How on earth...?”
The man who, many years ago, had been Conrad Turner interrupted him: “Captain Scarlet, we are in an alternate timeline caused by my actions in the past. In the prime timeline, the Mysterons are at war with the people of Earth.”
Scarlet and White exchanged disbelieving looks as Black continued.
“Using recently developed Earth technology, I travelled back through time to inflict vengeance on the members of Spectrum and to destroy the organisation itself.”
“So that is why you were in my apartment that night. You did come to kill me,” said Scarlet, coming to a sense of realisation that the Ambassador’s story was starting to make sense. “But why would you... Conrad... Captain Black, whoever you are, why would you want to destroy Spectrum? You were one of us!”
“True,” intoned Black, “At least, I was. In the prime timeline, it was I who led Spectrum’s Zero-X mission to Mars, not Captain Blue. It was I who launched an unprovoked attack on the Mysteron’s Martian Complex. It was my actions that led to an unrelenting war of nerves between the Mysterons and the Earthmen”
He paused to take in how ill-at-ease Colonel White and Captain Scarlet were looking. As Scarlet reached for his pistol and withdrew it from its holster, he said, “That will do you no good, Captain Scarlet. We are presently trapped in a time loop that will restart in a matter of moments. The timeline is closing in on itself and I need you to travel back through time and stop me.”
Captain Black looked at the clock. 14.27. Before Scarlet could reply, he, Colonel White and Cloudbase disappeared in a bright, ethereal green glow...
October 31st 2072, 13:54 Greenwich Mean Time, Timeline 6 – Loop 5, The Department of Theoretical Temporal Physics, Ottawa
... As he reappeared on the time platform in front of Abel Carberry, who heaved a mighty sigh of relief. He was visibly delighted that the Mysteron Ambassador had returned so quickly from his foray into the timestream without apparent injury to himself or damage to the timeline.
“What happened? You were only gone for about a minute.”
“The loop...” gasped Black, “it’s even shorter. We are out of time.”
Carberry said, “What? Out of time? What do you mean?”
Black gave Carberry the frostiest of looks and vanished into thin air. He reappeared momentarily in a Cloudbase armoury, much to the shock of a member of the admin team undertaking an inventory, before vanishing again into thin air and appearing in front of Colonel White.
White spluttered, “Wha... how the hell did you get into my office?” Reaching for the intercom to call Captain Grey to send in security, he stared more intently at the pale man and sat back in recognition. “Oh, it’s y...”
“We have no time to waste, Colonel,” Black interrupted. “I need to speak with Captain Scarlet urgently.”
White looked at him incredulously. “Just who the hell do you think you are, waltzing into my office and...”
Black slammed his fist down on White’s desk. “Call him immediately!” he roared. He added more quietly, “Please, Colonel. For the sake of both our worlds. Only Scarlet. Not Captain Blue.”
Captain Scarlet and Captain Blue were sitting in the Lounge having coffee when the latest message from the Mysterons came. Scarlet was already rising to his feet to go to the Conference Room as Colonel White’s raspy voice barked over the intercom. “Captain Scarlet, report to my office immediately. Captain Blue, you stand by.”
“Well now, I wasn’t expecting that,” said Scarlet, furrowing his brow, “I’d better go.”
“Me neither,” laughed Blue darkly. “You better not keep me in the dark, good buddy!”
Scarlet frowned thoughtfully, looking decidedly puzzled, then shook his head and strode out the door of the Lounge, not knowing that he would never see his friend again.
Captain Scarlet entered the operations room as Colonel White’s aide-de-camp, Lieutenant Green was busily working over several screens. “Hi Paul,” she said doubtfully. “Sounds like a right ding-dong going on in there. You’d better get right on in.”
Scarlet pulled a face and strode over to the door, which shooshed open as he approached. He stopped dead in the doorway as he stood almost nose to nose with somebody he hadn’t seen for almost six years. “You?” he spat. “All those years ago, it was you all along!” Scarlet immediately reached towards his holster.
Captain Black gestured towards Scarlet, who found that he was rooted to the spot. “Stand down, Captain Scarlet,” intoned Captain Black in the familiar monotone that had become such a welcome sound for the people of earth, but which now sounded slightly ominous and more than a little sinister. “I am truly sorry, Paul Metcalfe. I know that you cannot understand this, but I am the man who attempted to murder you that night in 2066. I am also the man you have known both as Conrad Turner and as Captain Black, but just not the ones you remember...”
Captain Scarlet and Colonel White exchanged quizzical looks as Black continued without missing a beat, “... However, you are not the Captain Scarlet that this crisis requires...”
Captain Black took out a Spectrum issue pistol and emptied it into Captain Scarlet. Scarlet was dead before he hit the ground and White looked on in horror as Captain Black casually discarded the weapon, reached over to Scarlet’s corpse and, touching it, vanished into thin air taking the dead man with him.
It was 14:09. Black did not know how much time they all had left.
xXxXxXx
October 31st 2072, 14:11 Greenwich Mean Time, Timeline 6 Loop - 5, The Department of Theoretical Temporal Physics, Ottawa
Captain Black looked on impassively as twin circles of greenish tinged light passed over Captain Scarlet’s corpse lying on the floor. He was relieved that Carberry was no longer attending to the temporal platform. It would have taken too much time to have explained to him what was going on and he offhandedly thought that it would be a terrible shame it had been necessary to extinguish such a prodigious mind.
Black knew that it did not take many seconds for the light to record the nature of the human’s physicality and to retrometabolically recreate him as a Mysteron. But this was not going to be a normal act of re-creation. He reflected that he was using up the Mysteron energy in his body faster than was wise, but knew that he had to recreate Captain Scarlet exactly as he was in 2072 in the previous timeline before he ceased to exist following Black’s abortive intervention in 2066.
And there it was. The particular genetic mutation which had allowed Paul Metcalfe to throw off the Mysteron control of his re-creation. Black proceeded carefully to recreate Captain Scarlet exactly as he was at that precise point in the multiplicity of timelines. He glanced at the clock on the wall. 14:15. Hurry up, you damned Earthman!
Captain Scarlet woke with a start. He looked around in confusion. His last memory was... yes, he was sitting in the Conference Room at Cloudbase... history was being rewritten. There was another Colonel White... in a hoverchair. He could remember two different Captain Blues... and Captain Black!
That was when he saw Black looking at him. “You!” he spat.
Black glanced at the clock. A few seconds off 14:16.
“We do not have much time, Captain Scarlet, so I will be brief. You remember history being rewritten. Do you not?”
Scarlet just stared at Black. “Answer me!”, he snarled.
Scarlet nodded slowly and Black continued. “It is more serious than that, Scarlet. We are stuck in a time loop and time is rapidly collapsing around us. We have less than five minutes to set things right again.”
Scarlet swallowed and glanced at the clock. “That’s a lot to take in, but I can run with that for the next five minutes. I take it you have a plan?”
“I do... and you won’t like it.”
“Try me.”
“I am responsible for the damage inflicted on the timeline...”
“You think I don’t know that? I know you killed Colonel White and Captain Ochre... stands to reason you did the rest.”
“You must travel back in time and stop me.”
“I can do that,” said Scarlet, smiling lopsidedly and nodding his head. “I’ll look forward to killing you.”
“No, you must not do that,” intoned Captain Black, bringing that particular discussion to an end.
Scarlet shook his head in disgust.
Ignoring the slight, Black went on, “That is not selfishness on my part, Scarlet. Your first task is certainly to prevent me killing Colonel White, but you must also stop me from killing you as soon as I see you. I was not the same person back then as I am now. It is imperative that both you and my counterpart in the past must survive if we have any chance of repairing and restoring the proper flow of time.”
He looked at the clock. 14:20. “Time is up, Captain Scarlet. For the sake of both our peoples, Godspeed.”
Without a backward glance, Captain Scarlet stood on the time platform. Black toggled a switch and Scarlet vanished as the timestream evaporated forever in a green, ethereal glow.
xXxXxXx
October 31st 2053, 14:21 Greenwich Mean Time, Prime Timeline, Universal Secret Service Headquarters, Slough, England
Captain Scarlet appeared in a darkened room. He swayed and fell to his knees, palms on the floor. Waves of nausea assaulted him and he retched violently. The occupant of the adjacent room heard the unpleasant noise and kicked the door open so hard that it smacked violently against the wall, just missing Scarlet and flooding the room with light. Scarlet raised his arm to shield his eyes from the assault of the brightness.
“You!” spat the shadow standing in the brightness. “What are you doing here, Scarlet?” Captain Black strode towards and loomed over the still woozy Spectrum agent. “How did you find me?” He lifted his leg to kick Scarlet in the face.
“Wait,” pleaded Captain Scarlet, “just give me a minute here. You don’t have to kill Colonel White today. You have nineteen years to do that...”
Black balked at that. Pointing his weapon from 2072 at Scarlet, Black kicked over a crate that was lying around and sat on it. “Go on...” he growled.
“You plan to destroy Spectrum in time. You kill Colonel White, Captain Ochre and Captain Blue’s family...” Scarlet gasped for breath.
Captain Black nodded sagely. “That is a good plan, Captain Scarlet. I did not know what to do next after I dispatched your Colonel White... The Mysterons thank you for your sound recommendations.” He leered ominously and raised his weapon.
Propping himself up on one elbow, Scarlet feebly raised an arm. “Conrad, please... wait... the plan backfired. The Mysterons are destroying all of time.”
Black slightly lowered the weapon, before raising it again. “Nice try, Earthman.”
“Black, no. I can prove it. Read my mind,” Scarlet was becoming desperate. “You know I have always kept myself separate from the Mysteron hive mind. You Mysterons have never been able to know any of my thoughts, have you?”
“Just another way you have disrespected the Mysterons, Earthman...” said Black, taking aim.
“Please,” interrupted Scarlet. “I have never let the Mysterons reach me before, but I will do that now. What have you got to lose?”
Black studied Scarlet. He knew that the Spectrum Captain was fearless and brave, but he had never seen Scarlet behave in this way before. Closing his eyes, Black reached out with his mind and was immediately assaulted by the myriad images of multiple timelines. Taken by surprise, he dropped his weapon.
Summoning every last ounce of energy, Scarlet pounced. Grabbing the weapon, he pointed it at Captain Black.
“You tricked me, Earthman.” Captain Black stood up slowly, still sifting through the images that he saw in Scarlet’s many memories. “Are you going to kill me now?”
Scarlet sighed heavily and set the weapon down unsteadily. “No,” he said finally. “Part of me really wants to, but the survival of us all depends on the two of us.”
Black looked on, bemused.
“Look, Captain Black... Conrad... I didn’t trick you. I wanted to show you that I was telling the truth. Now you know.”
Both men stared at each other in silence for a few seconds before Scarlet spoke again. His voice was soft, tired.
“I have all of these memories rattling around in my head. I have fought a war with the Mysterons and I am sick of that. I have also experienced the benefits of friendship with the Mysterons and I also have seen that the Mysterons have also valued friendship with planet Earth.” He reached out his hand. “Let’s start that today.”
Captain Black looked at the proffered hand as if it were a diseased fish... then slowly, deliberately, he extended his own and grasped it. Scarlet shook Black’s hand. Black gingerly squeezed in response. It felt strange... it was the first time that Black had physically touched a human being in this way for over five years.
“So,” said Captain Black.
“So,” responded Captain Scarlet.
“What happens now?” asked Black. “I was planning to spend the next nineteen years developing and refining plans to destroy Spectrum in time. That is no longer an option. Do you even have a timeline to return to?”
“I doubt it,” mused Scarlet thoughtfully. More decisively he said, “We need to hide now for the next nineteen years and we can’t interact in any way with the timeline. And I have absolutely no idea how this is going to pan out. You any thoughts about what to do next?”
“No... wait... yes... It has been many years since I have had... coffee.”
October 31st 2072, 14:53 Greenwich Mean Time +1, Prime Timeline, Café Oz, Paris
In a dark corner of Café Oz, a small Paris café bar near Châtelet, two friends sat in companionable silence reflecting anxiously what might happen to them in the next five to ten minutes.
Former Spectrum agents Captain Scarlet and Captain Black were having a rare foray away from the secluded farmhouse in the Normandy countryside that had been their home for most of the last nineteen years.
A veteran of the World Space Patrol, Captain Black was born Conrad Turner at the height of the Atomic Wars of the mid-21st century, losing his parents at an early age. Turner had joined the WSP following a successful education in Physics, Space Navigation, and International Law, before joining Spectrum and betraying them to the Mysterons.
His best friend and closest colleague – his only friend and companion for the last nineteen years – was Paul Metcalfe, British born and from a family with a long and illustrious military pedigree. He was code-named Captain Scarlet and, unusually for such a close friendship, he had been brutally slain by Captain Black nineteen years ago.
They had ceased referring each other by their Spectrum rank many years previously, calling each other simply “Scarlet” and “Black”.
Scarlet and Black were two of three Spectrum agents adversely impacted by the Zero-X expedition to Mars. Black had been in command of the mission and it was he who issued the order to destroy the Mysteron Complex located on the red planet.
The Mysterons had initially looked forward to welcoming the first visitors to their Martian citadel for many centuries. It had been a massive error of judgement that led to Black issuing the order to open fire... and it would be one that would have serious repercussions for the inhabitants of planet Earth. The Mysterons responded to the unprovoked attack by waging a tense five-year war of nerves with the Earthmen, spearheaded by Black himself, who now served the Mysterons.
It was primarily Spectrum that had stood in the breach, leading the response to the Mysterons’ continued aggression. But for Scarlet and Black, all that was in the past. The Mysterons had overreached themselves in the blind rage that fuelled their desire for revenge and had embarked on the ambitious goal of destroying Spectrum “in time”.
Black had no memory of having lived through the past nineteen years before, developing plans to kill serving Spectrum personnel in the past and building strategic alliances to inflict as much hurt and pain on the Earthmen as possible. The unexpected outcome of all this was that he had wrought untold havoc in the timeline, culminating the destruction of the timeline and the obliteration of all life, human and Mysteron.
The third Spectrum Agent to have been impacted by the Zero-X debacle was Captain Brown. He had been killed alongside Captain Scarlet in a car crash orchestrated by the Mysterons. The strange beings from Mars had issued their very first warning about how they were going to kill World President Younger. Spectrum agents Captain Scarlet and Captain Brown had been assigned to protect him, but following the car crash, they had been recreated by the Mysterons and charged with the task of carrying out the mission of killing the President instead.
As part of the assassination attempt, Captain Brown had been turned into a walking bomb, waiting until he was alone with the President before striking. Thankfully, the President realised that something was amiss when smoke suddenly began to emerge from the Spectrum officer’s brown tunic and was just about able to save himself by activating emergency access to a safe room as Captain Brown detonated himself.
The only time that Scarlet and Black ventured beyond the confines of the commune in which their farmhouse was situated was at Scarlet’s insistence. He had said that it was only right that they both pay their respects to their fallen colleague, Captain Brown, who like themselves, was both human and Mysteron. So, from a distance, they planned to watch the graveside committal following the memorial service when Captain Brown’s human body was buried.
That had almost proved to be disastrous as Rhapsody Angel caught sight of Scarlet and Black as a slight movement out of the corner of her eye. She noticed them ducking to the side and spoke quietly to Captain Blue. Despite his resistance, she dragged him away from the proceedings to investigate.
Black had used his Mysteron abilities to shield himself and his companion from detection. Scarlet’s heart ached to hear Dianne’s voice again as she was explaining to Captain Blue that she was certain she saw somebody watching them. It had been so long since he had seen either her or Adam. Scarlet misted up as he watched Rhapsody look around in vain, arms akimbo. He watched her as she tucked a stray lock of strawberry blonde hair behind her ear, shrugged and walked away with Captain Blue. That would be the last time he would ever see her, but she had been so close...
Black was furious that he had been compelled to use his Mysteron abilities to shield them but calmed down a few days later when he realised that it did not seem to have caused any adverse impact to the timeline. He vowed that that this would be the last time he would ever allow Scarlet to be moved to action by sentiment.
The two friends sat in the café, lost in their own thoughts, savouring the smell and taste of good coffee. Both men were intently studying the screens on their communication tablets, their eyes flitting occasionally to the champagne bucket that sat between them. It was Scarlet who broke the silence. “Penny for your thoughts, Black?”
Black started and looked up, shaking himself out of his own reverie. “You do know that we will probably cease to exist in a matter of minutes,” he said in his usual monotone and customary forthrightness.
Scarlet pulled a face. “We have discussed this to death, Black. You can’t be sure of that.” He paused. “And even if we do, we will have achieved what we set out to do... to save the timeline... won’t we?” He laughed a little bitterly. “At least from what we can guess, the Mysterons should know of our role in their rescue, shouldn’t they?”
Black nodded wistfully. “For some reason, I have never been able to contact the Mysterons. Did I ever tell you, Scarlet, that those time ripples you mentioned before... they must have been my previous attempts at communication with them?”
Scarlet sipped his coffee. “You may have done that once or twice, Black,” he deadpanned with feigned ignorance.
Between them, they had only one remaining concern. Black had further reasoned... hoped really, as Scarlet had correctly chided him... that, given the Mysterons’ awareness of what could happen with the timeline, they would emulate Colonel White’s refusal to give any malachandrite to Abel Carberry.
Black hypothesised, therefore, that if Carberry did not have an operational temporal platform, he could never have set the wheels of the damage to the timeline in motion by travelling through time in the first place. If this were the case, Black concluded that their continued existence would be a paradox and that neither he nor Scarlet could possibly exist in their current form. Black theorised that once the timeline could flow unfettered by Mysteron interference, the events that precipitated their very existence would no longer be real.
Scarlet did see the flawless logic of Black’s hypothesis but chose to believe that the temporal paradox which had allowed them to exist for the last nineteen years could allow that to continue. He chose to live in hope – at which Black had perpetually and contemptuously scoffed.
However, despite Black’s lack of support, Scarlet did also see the wisdom in having a backstop position. Black was adamant that the Mysterons would act entirely logically and would immediately cease hostilities against the Earth. As for Scarlet, he was genuinely sceptical that any approach by the Mysterons would be taken as honest and sincere by Spectrum.
Scarlet therefore worked on a plan to cover both eventualities. If Black was correct and the two of them ceased to exist, this would happen at 14:58 precisely, Paris time. In preparation for that eventuality, Scarlet had composed a very long communication for his counterpart in the prime timeline. He wanted to chronicle his experiences from the time that history began to become fluid, right up to what it was like house-sharing with one of the sworn enemies of Earth!
Black had objected that this amounted to interference in the timeline, but Scarlet had thought it through, even overthought it to death. He reasoned that Black’s counterpart would probably have a future as the Martian Ambassador to Earth and that he would come to know of the multiple timelines and all that had happened through the Mysterons hive mind. He therefore reckoned that it was only fair that his counterpart knew the whole story as well. Scarlet chuckled to himself as Black merely grunted in response to what he thought was quite a strong rationale!
On a more solemn note, Scarlet also wanted to express his apologies... although he wasn’t entirely sure what he was apologising for. He reflected that it was a terribly English thing to do. He wanted to apologise for allowing the timeline to flow as it had done, without interfering in anyway, resulting in lives lost in the unnecessary and wasteful conflict with the Mysterons – for which he was now feeling responsible. He was also feeling curiously guilty for his counterpart not giving more of a commitment to Rhapsody Angel.
Black had consistently chided Scarlet over the years for wasting his time in this endeavour, but as Scarlet had retorted on more than one occasion, “It’s not like we have anything else to do.”
Scarlet had actually found the whole experience of writing what amounted to his autobiography oddly therapeutic and finished off with exhortations to his counterpart to seize the day with Dianne and to help Colonel White embrace the overtures of peace from the Mysterons, no matter how suspicious he was of them and of Captain Black.
His final word to the other Captain Scarlet was a word of caution about who he should share this communication with. He could imagine the look on his counterpart’s face as he read what would effectively be his last words:
As I finish, it is not that I am giving you advice about who to share this with, but I strongly urge you to speak to Captain Black. Yes, Captain Black. Given his Mysteron abilities, he should already know all of this and can confirm it to you. I suspect that you will have to share at least some of it with the colonel, but I will leave it up to your own judgement what to do for the best after that. That judgement has seen me in good stead over the last nineteen years, which, in retrospect, have been good to me.
I hope that the next nineteen years - and beyond, no doubt, will be just as good to you.
Your friend,
Paul
Back in Café Oz, both men looked at the clock. 14:56. “Time to send the message,” said Scarlet. He punched in the code on his device that would insure his message was received by this timeline’s Captain Scarlet, instead of being delayed or even screened out entirely by Spectrum’s security filters. He sat back and sighed deeply.
Black looked up at the clock. 14:55. He nodded to Scarlet, who silently reached over towards the champagne bucket and lifted out the bottle, looked at it and smiled. He had ordered the Preen and Tarp 2051. The irony was not lost on either of them. Black rolled his eyes. Scarlet had noticed that Black was displaying an increasing amount of human characteristics, the more time they spent together.
Scarlet removed the cork with a pop and tried in vain to move his legs out of the way of the spurt of champagne that spilled out. He exhaled in mock exasperation, then poured a glass for Black and one for himself.
Setting the bottle down, Black looked at the clock again. 14:57. He lifted his glass. He had often lamented the fact that human alcohol had absolutely no effect on his Mysteron metabolism. Despite Scarlet’s protestations, Black had tried to get blind drunk on the day of the Zero-X assault on the Mysteron Martian Complex. He had failed miserably.
Looking Scarlet in the eye, Black picked up the champagne and proposed a toast.
“To friendship,” he intoned solemnly.
“To peace,” replied Scarlet.
As the clock turned 14:58. Scarlet and Black ceased to exist, their glasses clattering onto the table, spilling champagne everywhere. They vanished as a green, ethereal glow suffused around the room and, much to the consternation of the others in the café, as a dark voice echoed around the room.
“This is the voice of the Mysterons. We know that
you can hear us, Earthmen. At first, you will not understand this message
when we say that we are profoundly grateful for the significant service
provided for us by the officers of Spectrum. We no longer have any reason to
continue to exact our revenge on the people of Earth for the unprovoked
attack on our Martian Complex. The war of nerves is over. The Mysterons
acknowledge that their actions in revenge for that attack have caused pain
and injury to the inhabitants of planet Earth. For that we... apologise.
We understand that the Earth may not be ready for peace with the Mysterons, but when you are, we will be ready to accept. The Mysterons hope that you will be able to embrace our overtures of friendship in time.”
xXxXxXx
Acknowledgments
Ever since I was a little boy, I have been intrigued by Time Travel stories in whatever format: comic book, novel, television show or movie. I started with "Dr Who" but also loved Irwin Allen's "The Time Tunnel" and the British show "Timeslip". I was also raised on the Supermarionation shows of Gerry Anderson and they fired the imagination of my childhood. I never thought that I would ever get to write a story about one of them!
I am grateful to my son, Peter, and to Chris Bishop for their unswerving support and encouragement in the construction of this tale. Thank you too, Chris, for beta-reading the story, for keeping me right about format and for your many excellent suggestions that enhanced the tale. Any remaining errors are entirely down to me.
I am so glad that the BBC repeated Thunderbirds, Stingray and Captain Scarlet in the early 1990s, which meant that I could share this amazing aspect of my childhood with my own children, Peter and Gareth. I am also grateful to my wife of almost 40 years, Liz, for her love as well as her patience and longsuffering with the weird and wonderful interests of her husband.
They say that there is nothing like a good story. That is perfectly true. I have so many good friends and precious family members who have contributed to my own story. I have enjoyed the experience of adding this piece to my story and I really hope that you do as well.
Jim Murdock
Northern Ireland
October 2020