The Old Television Studio, Chapter Three

Luminous fragments of a bygone Nottingham still ringing with the forces that had rendered its genesis flew in the darkness of that cavernous chamber, speeding to a vanishing-point far off whence emitted the summons which had taken hold of Jenny’s every sense. She saw old stone building-frontages ruddy with sunset beneath panoramas of fire-splashed cloud, and there were glowing pine-forests too, rolling on either side of the road while overhead a new night sky scintillated with stars. Here and there a flicker of friendly flame, or the yellow spark of a teleport, even hinted at The Four Heroes as they’d been then.

Marvelling, Jenny padded inside, letting the images lead her. She saw, but more than that, heard. This studio’s airspace was as alive as it had been when thriving networks made their living here. It was the music of old Nottingham, pounding out its eternal refrain, and it thrilled Jenny through as it did all those who had ever been drawn to the city. This building had stood when all of it happened and here it was happening still, in an enclosed square of sounding space, its foundations planted amidst the roots and gravel of the formative era.

And at the end of it all, where the pictures of the past were converging, a figure waited.

Huge, tall, and broad, he was sealed from head to toe in a life-support suit, and his mirrored faceplate surveyed Jenny as she approached. The presence of this stranger so acted on the girl that her fingertips fumbled at once for a hemline, but found instead only flimsy leg-holes quite inappropriate for the purpose.

Words failed Jenny.

A curtsey couldn’t have been more indicated, and here she was wearing shorts…!

“On, Mini-Flash Juniper,” said a wise and solemn voice from behind the visor. “Do not veer from this course. You are closer than most ever come. As was I, in the last days.”

Next instant he was dashed from sight.

Terror gripped Jenny. It was the same ragged falling blackness she’d dreaded while looking out over Nottingham before. Now at a swoop it swathed the speaker and the lingerings of long ago, muffling the music too, that what stirred in its place were unclean disharmonies jarring and clanging their chaos from every plane.

As they’d done.

From the jagged rocks.

Her persecutor had her at last, and he wasn’t going to stop at text-messages. This time he wouldn’t even stop at making it happen from afar.

Jenny turned to flee, but something sapped her once-strong thighs and threw her to the deck, knees bruising, palms slapping with a sting and a sprain. All that was left to do was scream, though Jenny was well past that state of fear where any noise would come, just a soundless and unending wracking in which were pleas and promises of anything, anything at all, allegiance or service or even slavery if only she might be spared –

“Er, Nottingham to the girl in the snuggle-sweater?”

The voice was familiar. Jenny knew it in a flash.

“She slips that thing on and you know she’s going to do nothing but daydream about revisiting a certain first snog!”

“Flashstanch?” cried Jenny, flinging her arm as far as it would reach. “Oh, Flashstanch, are you there? I need you! Flashstanch, please!”

A warm hand clasped hers and hauled her from the dark, out of danger, out of wherever it was she’d gone, and back to where she was supposed to be.

Flashstanch, golden-haired with starlet good looks, was staring her in the face.

“Mini-Flash Juniper?” said Flashstanch.

She wasn’t cracking jokes anymore. In fact, her expression was one of profound concern. It was shared by Sonica and Mini-Flash Splitsville, standing on either side of her.

They were in one of the science labs. Mini-Flash Juniper was wearing the Earth-style blue school uniform she’d fabric-replicated. She’d put it on this morning, and Flashstanch had guessed correctly why. This was the Nottingham which orbited Planet Nereynis. The one where Mini-Flash Juniper actually lived. The one she’d actually been to.

First of all she reassured her friends she was safe and well, although even by Special Program standards the words were murmurous. “But can you just remind me, girls,” she continued, “exactly what it is you’re working on?”

“Oh, this? It’s just a thing for Mr. Thragg,” Flashstanch explained. “Neetra was worried the old Solidity transmission-buoys are going to pack up one day. We’re trying to open a portal which can keep us in touch with Earth if that happens. It’ll allow certain signals and messages to travel from the Nottingham that’s there to this one here.”

Mini-Flash Juniper gazed on the equipment. She was ready to vouch for its efficaciousness. The others meanwhile were still very much gazing on her.

“That portal’s just given me an Intelligentsor vision,” Juniper informed them.

Her two fellow Mini-Flashes gaped. Sonica, made of more pragmatic matter, looked from one of the thunderstruck trio to the next.

“And I encountered The Foretold One,” Mini-Flash Juniper went on. “In many ways it was not unlike being back in Joe’s subconsciousness. The same kind of selective amnesia applied, and I was leading a life which wasn’t mine.”

“That does sound like what we went through,” Sonica granted her at length. “Only I’ve not detected anything strange since we began this project.”

“And that freaky funnel wasn’t spinning the hits on your narrator’s Special Program hi-fi,” added Mini-Flash Splitsville.

“But I’m more susceptible than you,” Mini-Flash Juniper confessed, sighing. “You know I am, Splitsville. No other among the Special Program succumbed completely as I did – even Pseudangelos had to be drugged by Yon and those creatures. And I’m the slowest at Joe’s masterclass. I’ve never been able to get the hang of it like you and Flashshadow. And then there was Limb Four, so I’m sure you can see, if anyone’s going to be vulnerable to what the portal’s serving out…”

Flashstanch gave her hand a squeeze.

“No more of that, babes,” said the senior. “Now I think you’ve got a date with the Medical Centre, rather than Mini-Flash Robin.”

But Mini-Flash Juniper didn’t look like she was planning on either. “Nottingham, Earth?” she repeated. “The original one?”

“I haven’t heard of another,” was Sonica’s reply.

“Then there’s nothing else for it,” said Mini-Flash Juniper vaguely. “I’m going to have to go.”

THE END