Chapter 21

Guest from the future

Disclaimer: All characters belong to Impossible Pictures, unless they're original.
Note: This chapter contains some spoilers from the canon series.

Chapter twenty-one
The morning sun had penetrated at long last the window shutters, finally landing on the face of Sarah Page. "Oh," she groaned, feeling slightly ill, "this is the last time I let myself party with you people – we just had one, maybe two bottles of-"

"As Apollo has said, you must have moderation in all – even in moderation, but that is another story," Jenny said firmly, as she thrust a small cup of hard black coffee under Sarah's nose. "Here you go, a medicine for just such an emergency."

With her mind still blurry and her alertness levels really low, Sarah mechanically swallowed al-most the whole contents of the cup. The next moment, her eyes bulged from their sockets, and she almost spat the entire contents back into the cup or onto her blanket – only Jenny's active participation prevented her from doing that, so she had to re-swallow the coffee after all.

"I don't know who taught you that trick-"

"It was Lester-"

"Then James Lester is a-"

"Ah, you're awake – very good," Becker emerged from the bathroom with a towel thrown around his shoulder like a Roman patrician. "Caroline, Sarah's awake!"

"I can see that," the latter responded from an armchair that she apparently favoured, "and I am really glad to see it – now we can move on, I guess?"

"Yes, I suppose so too," Jenny nodded and looked down at Sarah with a bit of sternness in her eyes. "Are you ready to get out of bed?"

Blushing weakly, Sarah complied.

* * *

The megaopterans, apparently, could testify that not all bad things came in big packages - some-times they came in smaller swarms... well, swarms composed of smaller-sized individual speci-mens, that is. Otherwise, however, the futuristic insects were pretty much the same ones that Danny and others had already met in their trips to the future – multicoloured insects with spiky legs and jaws, resembling – at the same time – beetles, crickets, praying mantises and walking sticks.

"I know, I know," Connor suddenly murmured to Abby with enthusiasm, "they remind me of wetas!"

"Of what?"

"Wetas! Giant flightless crickets from New Zealand!"

"Those animals aren't crickets, nor are they flightless," Abby couldn't help but point out.

"It's just details, really," Connor said dismissively. "These insects are-"

"Duck!"

...Unfortunately, Connor wasn't unable to react in time, and so a splattering of insect innards, coloured in bilious yellow, hit him in the side of the head: Connor Temple just yelped and finally hankered down, to Abby's relief.

* * *

The breakfast, to Sarah's hidden disgust, proved to be more coffee (or tea), coupled with toasts with jam, or morning cereal, or sausages, or fried eggs – the standard set in many hotels and similar establishments; however, after the early morning encounter with coffee, Sarah didn't have much of an appetite.

And neither did her friends – to a point, as their portions, even Becker's, were proportionally smaller than those of the Canadian members of their exodus.

Suddenly, a gust of cheerful jokes and laughter came from the cafeteria section where the Mounties were sitting. "He who laughs last laughs best," Sarah said sourly. She didn't mean any-thing by it, but the others at her table exchanged meaningful looks.

"I see that we're rubbing off onto her," Caroline suddenly spoke, grinning slightly. "Sarah, relax. All bad things will come to an end and we will see the sunshine and play in the rain yet."

Sarah just snarled and suddenly grabbed the temples of her head – the hangover's headache was back.

* * *

The cemetery looked like a mess, with most of the tombstones riddled with bullets, dislodged by grenades, or splattered by bug guts, or, much more unfortunately, by human blood or flesh – some of the megaopterans had gotten lucky.

"Is this how your usual field missions work out?" Lester asked with a grimace, as he carefully watched his step, less he'd step into something nasty. "Yes?"

"Pretty much so," Connor nodded, still wiping the side of his head with some snow. "It may suck, but the satisfaction of a job well done-"

"-is better than the dissatisfaction of a job done poorly," Lester finished flatly. "Temple, you were not amusing when you were staying at my apartment, and now-"

"-I haven't had time to move yet," Connor said cheerfully, "so I am still staying at your apartment, not-"

"-not if I have anything to say about," Lester turned to Abby. "Can you help your boyfriend move out?"

Unexpectedly, Abby blanched. "Before we left, I, uh, left Rex at your place-"

Now, it was Lester's turn to blanch. "I think it's time for you to extract him, alongside your boyfriend and his other two little friends, now. I'll give you a ride."

"Can I come?" Danny asked curiously – he'd never been at Lester's place before.

"Oh fine, come along," Lester rolled his eyes. "I'll update you about Jenny's situation as well."

* * *

Meanwhile, halfway around the world, Jenny Lewis abruptly woke-up from her daydream as her nose suddenly itched. Somebody is thinking about me – probably Danny or Lester, she mused. Oh well, we'll just wait and see what the future will bring.

To be continued...