Chapter Twenty Eight: Bad News

"You're telling me that the universe is about to go down the plug-hole, and there's nothing you can do about it?" Dylan asked, staring at the pair of young people standing in front of his desk.

"Probably, yes." Hope nodded, "but nothing is ever certain."

"But this is pretty certain," Dylan persisted.

"On a scale of one to ten…" Hope waved a hand, "nine point five it's going to happen."

"Fantastic." Dylan muttered. He sat up, rubbing his eyes, "Look. You cannot be serious. You can't just turn up on my ship, bring half a worldship of Magog with you, announce you're only here by mistake anyway, and then say 'sorry, but reality is now official screwed'! This… this is insane! Suddenly the universe is ending?"

"Yup." Hannah nodded, "and not for the first time."

"Well, that's just great," Dylan looked as if he was going to fall into a fit of hysteria, "that's just absolutely fantastic! Magog, the worldship, the abyss and hey! Let's destroy reality while we're at it!"

"All in a day's work." Hannah shrugged.

Hope sighed, and ran a hand through his hair, "look, captain Hunt, we appreciate that this probably isn't what you want to hear right now, but the fact is, we need your help. We have to fix the teseract drive and get out of here, if we have a hope in hell of saving the universe, let alone you and your crew and this ship."

Dylan held up his hands, "all well and good, but what do you want from us? What exactly can we do here?"

Hope and Hannah glanced at one another. Both felt the sudden helplessness of children who have just realised that their parents are not, in fact, all powerful. As children, Dylan Hunt had been the answer to everything. He always knew what to do, how to do it, how to settle an argument, solve a problem. But now they were grown up, and the illusions of a flawless idol were long gone.

"Don't do anything." Hope began, suddenly, "or rather, do whatever you were going to do before we showed up. We need you to act as if we're not here. We can't risk screwing up history any more than we already have. Everyone on my crew apart from myself and Rommie have yet to be conceived. We have to be careful or we could cancel ourselves out."

"Just… act like you aren't here?" Dylan raised an eyebrow.

Hope nodded, "we'll stay on our Maru as much as possible, and you try to keep clear of us."

Dylan rubbed his eyes, "okay… do nothing. Fine. I can live with that. Just… do something about the whole… end of the universe, alright?"

"We're working on it," Hope promised.