Chapter 11

The United North American Kingdom
2142―About 93 years after the downfall of the United States

He'd been thrust through the timestream before he had even activated the time machine, he knew that much.

The machine must have been preset.

PJ checked the dashboard. He had been sent very far into the future. That was bad. To travel so far required a lot of fuel―yep, the tank was now empty. He'd have to find somewhere to refuel and take himself back to 2049. Groaning and wincing to his feet, he let himself out the pod door and stepped into a grisly, nightmarish world.

Thick layers of brown, hazy smog smothered out the sun, turning the world a dull, ashy gray. He found himself in a lightly forested area, except that the trees were all dead and withered, choked by the smoky sky. It was chilly. Small piles of sooty snow could still be seen in the shadows of rocks and knolls that never received much warmth or light. The air he breathed felt dead, smelled of decay. He could detect no signs of life in this place, whether flora or fauna.

As he investigated his surroundings, he came to hear a soft trickling of water. Following the noise, he located a muddy riverbed that was dangerously close to drying up. The murky little stream was not quite five feet at the widest and probably no more than ankle deep.

"Hello?" he tried. "Is anybody here?"

In answer to his call, he heard a new sound. Looking up, he spotted a small group of strangely shaped hovercraft in the distance, heading his way. They were moving quickly, soon, he could make out their shapes. The strange machines resembled flying motorcycles, with each vehicle carrying two riders. He was about to shout and wave his arms to get their attention when he saw a familiar symbol painted on the sides of the hovercraft―the Conspirium symbol, with its two white intersecting ovals. PJ cursed and concealed himself behind a half-buried stump on the muddy riverbank while the airships descended on the location of the time machine.

Turning to watch through a gap in its decaying brambles, PJ observed. The hovercraft alighted softly and a dozen or so humans disembarked to begin investigating the site. All of them were wearing thick brown coats and visors that shielded their faces, gloves and long brown or dark-colored pants, and big boots. Each was armed with a futuristic looking weapon that didn't match any firearms PJ was familiar with, although they did look somewhat like modified versions of advanced submachine guns.

"So this is the time machine that caused the anomaly our scanners picked up," said one of them.

"Yeah, but there's no one here," another responded.

"That's fine, makes it all the easier for us to pull the thing apart and sell it for scraps!"

"But I thought our orders were to destroy any time machines that we find?"

"That's true, but they didn't tell us how we should destroy it, now did they? What's it to Colonel Henshaw whether we destroy it one way or another? At least we can make some moolah on the side!"

"Hey, that's a good point, yeah!"

"What about whoever was operating the time machine? We're also supposed to take anyone who's from the past as prisoner."

"Fine, Bradley. You take that lot, and go search for the time travelers. The rest of us will scavenge what we can from the time machine, then destroy whatever's left."

PJ ducked out of sight as a couple of the Conspirium soldiers spread out to search the area. Behind him, the noises of tools took over the ambiance of the previously quiet scene―hammering, drilling, things being torn apart and thrown to the ground. Trying to fight so many with no weapons was suicide, but he'd come too far and worked too hard to get his hands on a time machine to let them destroy it now. He stood up to get ready to attack the Conspirium soldiers, then winced at the reminder that he'd just minutes ago taken a nasty spill down a long staircase. He collapsed to his knees, groaning.

"Hey, what's that?"

PJ froze. Two of the soldiers were lazily approaching him. He tried to push himself upright one more time, and just then, he had a better idea. Instead of rising to his feet as usual, becoming bipedal, he remained in a crouching stance and crossed his eyes before turning to the sound of the crunching boots coming his way. He looked up curiously at the soldiers, now standing over him, and chattered mindlessly. "Grdrdrdrdrdrdrd."

"What? In the world? Is that thing?" one of them asked the other.

"I have no idea. I've never seen an animal like that before in my life!"

"It looks like a beaver, but don't beavers usually have buck teeth? And why does it have duck feet?"

"It's a―beaver… duck… thing?"

PJ absentmindedly scratched an itch behind his ear with his webbed hind foot before dropping on his side and rolling in the mud.

"It looks like he's not scared of people; let's take him home as a pet!"

"Wait!" The soldier held out an arm to stop his companion. "You know what? It's probably a mutated beaver! The radiation in this area must have caused it to grow deformities like that!"

"You're right! On second thought, I don't want a radioactive beaver-duck."

With that, the guards turned and left. As PJ shook the mud off, the pit of his stomach dropped. Radioactive? That means…

That explained why there were no other living things around and why the soldiers had all come decked out in post-apocalyptic steampunk overcoats and visors.

Like an army of ants dissecting a dead grasshopper, the soldiers had already disassembled the time machine and taken whatever they wanted. The scouts that had been sent out returned and reported their fruitless search.

"There's nobody here. We searched the surroundings and didn't find anything except a weird, mutated beaver-duck."

"Well, they couldn't have gotten far. We'll sweep the area aerially and if we don't find them, then they're as good as dead anyways. The radiation levels are still high. Nobody could survive out here for long."

A few minutes later and the soldiers were wrapping up their work. PJ had given up on trying to fight them now. He sat on his haunches doglike along the riverbank and watched them throw all their gear back into their hovercraft before climbing in themselves, leaving nothing but a few bits and scraps of the time machine behind. The airships then zoomed into the air and circled around a few times before turning back the way they came, eventually disappearing behind the horizon.

Now he knew all his worst fears had been realized. The Conspirium had won. They had changed the future, and the nuclear bomb in Washington had destroyed his country. The fallout of the bomb must have devastated and irradiated the landscape around him―assuming there weren't other nukes that had been detonated in this alternate timeline as well. If history had indeed been changed, anything was possible. The whole world could be completely different from the one he used to know. And now, he once again had no time machine to go back and stop everything from happening.

It was all over. He was stranded, marooned to the future. PJ hung his head in defeat and shame, wallowing in the muddy riverbank like the stupid animal he was.

He'd sat there feeling sorry for himself for a while before his survival instincts started to kick in, telling him to move. His wilderness survival training had taught him that lost people tend to walk downhill because they were frightened and afraid and didn't know what to do, taking the path of least resistance. He didn't feel afraid. He felt dejected and defeated. There was no point to his life anymore, but his survival instincts clashed with that notion. He was also surging with hatred for the Conspirium. The Conspirium. That―that stirred something deep inside. They may have beaten him. They may have done everything Suzy proclaimed they would, and overthrown the United States. But he could still do something. He could still fight them. He couldn't stop them anymore, but he could get revenge.

He decided to cling to that thought. He needed to survive so he could have his revenge. That thought filled his mind, pushing him up, willing him to move on. The Conspirium soldiers had flown off in the same general direction the stream flowed. Maybe they had an outpost somewhere downstream. He would go and harass the Conspirium just like he did not an hour ago. No―like he had almost a hundred years ago.

And so he began to follow the river as it wound its way down. As long as he stayed out of the deep mud, his progress was easy enough. With nothing else to do, his mind drifted to everything he had lost. Marie, Phineas, Isabella, what had happened to them? Did they make it out of the city safely? Where did they go to hide from the Conspirium? Did they fight back? Where were they now? Were they still alive, somewhere? It was unlikely, even Marie would be well over 100 years old by now. He probably wouldn't even recognize her if he saw her. If she was still alive.

He walked and he walked, without resting, for hours, until the day steadily grew dark and turned into night. At this point, he was becoming very tired, very hungry, and not to mention a little cold. He decided he should stop and rest when it was becoming too dark to see well enough to walk. The mud was cold, but when he tested the water's taste, it felt warming to him. He waded into the center of the stream, which had grown enough now to be deep enough to for him to swim in, and felt heat reentering his body. He hadn't felt a sensation like this in a long time. The water wasn't actually warm, but his fur was better at retaining his body heat in an aquatic environment. Yes, this was his natural habitat, and it somehow rejuvenated him, like coming home after being away for a very long time.

He swam around in the darkness and was surprised to discover a sense he forgot he had. The long dormant endoreceptors in his bill were picking up weak electric currents in his surroundings, and if he closed his eyes and focused hard enough, it almost let him see underwater. Letting his instincts take over, he hunted the sources of those electric currents, surprising himself again when he easily caught a few snails, crayfish, and a plethora of water striders. He'd never eaten like this before, but he was so hungry he gratefully chewed and swallowed everything he managed to catch. After he'd hunted enough to stave away the sharp pangs of hunger, he crawled back to the shore, dug himself a small burrow, and went to sleep.

He thought he'd sleep better, considering the exhausting day he'd had, but he woke up multiple times to stomach cramps throughout the night. He suspected that drinking the water in this stream was the culprit, but he had no other water source and thus no choice. Eventually, he woke up feeling still very tired, but it was light enough to see by. He forced himself to drink a little more water―but not a lot, to prevent getting more sick―before resuming his migration.

This time, now that the stream had grown enough, he chose to swim, and was astonished he'd forgotten how much more quickly he could move in the water. It felt so natural. The amount of energy it took to swim was so slight and effortless, it felt like moving around after removing a heavy backpack. He could even stop paddling and simply let the current take him along, although he made much better time swimming, and he didn't seem to get tired at all.

This was amazing. He hadn't been in water like this since training in the pools at OWCA Academy. In a couple of hours, he'd traversed many more miles than he had on foot walking all day. The landscape was improving, too. He was starting to see green offshoots in some of the trees. Grass was growing in clumps here and there, close to the riverbanks. He even spotted a few birds. Taking that as a sign that he was at least out of the dangerous radioactive zones, he stopped again at midday to take a nap. When he woke up, he hunted for more food, with less success than he had the night before. His instincts told him that his prey was more active at dusk and nighttime, and could also see him coming when it was light out. So he eventually gave up and continued taking the river to wherever it was leading him.

Having not eaten much for the past two days, by sunset he was feeling more hungry than he had ever been in his life. Even more so than basic training, since OWCA Academy at least adjusted training regiments and meal times to accommodate animal species with extra high metabolisms, like platypuses. So he stopped his travels early to begin hunting, and now that he had a little practice using his electrosensory under his belt, he feasted. The river was much wider and deeper now, and prey was likewise much more abundant here, away from the radiation zone. By the time it was completely dark, PJ had filled his belly on more crayfish, worms, and even a couple of small frogs. The stomach cramps had finally gone away as well, so after he hastily dug out another small but cozy burrow, he slept soundly for the rest of the night.

The next day progressed in much the same way. He was feeling a lot more energized after having eaten and getting a good night's sleep, and continued following the river at a good clip. The further along he went, the more the flora improved in diversity and appearance. This day, for the first time, he could say that the environment around him actually looked healthy. The trees were in the late stages of bloom, indicating that the time of year was late spring to early summer. Various colorful flowers dotted the riverbanks, improving on the grim color palette of late. It never stopped being overcast, however, and PJ had seen no hint of sun or moon or stars since his arrival.

It was around the middle of the day, as he was leisurely swimming along, when the river passed through a sudden clearing of forest, and there, he saw his first sign of humans. The pasture was surrounded by a zig-zagging split-rail fence, corralling a small herd of sheep and goats to the grazing grounds beside the river. He didn't see any people, but it was proof he was near civilization.

Keeping an eye out as he continued following the river, it wasn't long before he saw smoke rising over the treetops downstream. If he'd finally reached the Conspirium outpost, he was ready. He had the element of surprise, for they'd never expect a platypus to attack them. The anxiety and rage he'd been feeding off constantly since starting his journey down the stream built up in anticipation, pumping him up to fight. He sped along with the current, rounded a narrow bend in the river, and was blown away by what he saw next.

He'd reached a small village, not a military outpost. It was like a painting out of the Renaissance Age. Cobblestone streets and little houses made of timber, straw, and stone filled his view. Horse-drawn carriages ferried people about, people who were mostly wearing plain garb like that of the early American colonists. He was no longer sure if that time machine had sent him forwards or backwards in time.

Confused by the scene before him, PJ approached the shore slowly to take in everything there was to see. For all the hustle and bustle, it seemed to be a peaceful village. A few children were laughing and playing along the riverbank. Women in long dresses sat on their porches spinning cloth using foot pedals and wooden wheels. A group of teenage girls were drawing water from the river using ceramic pots. And yet, here and there he could see glimpses of technology, like the unlit LED display board advertising the local tavern, or the rusty remains of a VW Convertible Beetle that had been stripped of its insides and turned into a decorative planter, with palm fronds and flowers growing out of it. The unique and logic-defying amalgam was perhaps the most singularly bizarre sight he had ever witnessed.

"Did I stumble on an Amish community?" he wondered aloud.

Now that he had found people, PJ stopped to consider what he should do. This was a strange future, and he didn't know anything about the world he'd been taken to. Perhaps he could get information and supplies from this village. That being said, after everything he'd been through recently, he had lost almost all trust in humans at this point. It seemed like everything he'd done, every step he'd taken, had led to another one of Suzy's traps. Was this another one? How paranoid could he be? Suzy was probably dead by now, unless she made it well into her 130's.

As he was pondering this, a tall belltower started to chime, and all the townspeople stopped what they were doing and looked up to the sky. PJ looked too, and saw it: another Conspirium hovercraft. It was more or less the same size and shape of a sailboat, painted black, with the all-too-familiar symbol of the Conspirium displayed on its side. As it approached, the villagers began rushing around in a state of panic. Some hid, others gathered at the town square, which was within sight of the river. Children cried as their parents whisked them away. PJ sank low in the water and watched.

The Conspirium airship parked itself directly overhead. A shaft of light fell on the center of the village. The villagers fearfully watched a solid beam of light descend from the deck of the ship, like an elevator, carrying four men in matching uniforms. Once they had safely touched down on the ground, the lights faded away.

The biggest and meanest looking Conspirium soldier stepped forward, looking like he was in charge. "Listen up, all you dudes and dudettes," he said, loudly enough for even PJ to hear. "Three days ago, our scanners picked up a time machine radiation signature. When we sent an extraction team to the site, the time machine had been abandoned, and the time traveler dudes were nowhere to be found."

He paused to scan the faces in the crowd. None of the people had the courage to meet his gaze.

"That was at the Forbidden Mountain. This is the only settlement within a hundred miles of the land of death. If our little time travelers survived, they would have had nowhere else to go but here. Now, have any strangers shown up in this here village recently?" He licked his lips and moved closer to a group of elderly men and women who were seated on a log bench, leering down at them one by one.

The youngest man seated at the bench, or whom PJ indicated as such by the fact that his hair was the least white, and who was further distinguished by the large, beaded necklace he wore, stood up. "As I told you yesterday, no strangers have shown up in our village," he said, keeping his eyes on the ground. "We haven't seen anybody wearing twenty-first century clothing, nor has any illegal technology been discovered in the village."

"Is that so, Mr. Mayor dude?" the soldier asked. He snapped his fingers, and one of the soldiers behind him dramatically brandished a short, leather whip. "Are you sure you haven't spotted any dudes wearing Old World clothes? Or noticed any illegal technology lying around? Nothing that would indicate a time traveler has been through here?"

The mayor submitted all too easily. Kneeling on the ground, he offered himself to the soldier. "I swear on the life of The King, that to the best of my knowledge, there have been no time travelers here. I offer myself to be whipped as a sign of my sincerity."

"No!"

A small girl with little black pigtails, who PJ judged to be too young to even attend school, rushed to the side of the mayor and wrapped her arms around him. "Don't hurt my daddy, meanie!" she scowled at the soldier. "He's telling the truth!"

"Sophie," the mayor gently sounded, "we talked about this. Go back and stay with Mommy."

The little girl shook her head. "Mm-mm! I'm gonna prokect you!" She clung to his side even tighter.

The soldier threw his head back and roared in laughter. "Now that's the kind of spunk I like to see!" With that, he reached out and grabbed her by the arms, lifting her high off the ground.

She cried out at being separated from her father, but quickly turned her head and met the glowering of the soldier, unintimidated. PJ was impressed. "You're a bad-bad man!" she spat.

"Please, let her go!" the mayor begged, desperately pressing his forehead into the ground. "She's just a child, she doesn't know what she's saying!"

"Humph," humphed the soldier, ignoring his pleas. "You have to admire the honesty of a child. If she says you aren't harboring any time travelers, then it's probably true. Wouldn't you agree?" he directed at the other soldiers.

They nodded.

The mayor breathed a sigh of relief.

"However, it seems to me that you haven't raised your daughter to properly respect her elders, have you?" he sneered.

The mayor raised his head to meet the soldier's eyes for the first time, tears brimming. "I'll do better! I'll teach her her place, I swear!"

The soldier savagely kicked the mayor.

"Daddy!" screamed the little girl.

Extending her out to arm's length to present her backside, the soldier looked at his comrades. "Let's give this little dudette three lashes. That should teach her her lesson." The leader took the whip and pulled it back, readying to strike. The girl's screams rang out through the village as the leather sliced through the air.

SLAP!

Feeling no pain, the girl stopped her crying and looked up.

PJ gave her a reassuring smile, curling his tail around her body to shield her from the whip. He had grabbed onto the leader's arm and climbed up, putting him at her level. Before anyone could process what had happened, he then bit the arm that was holding them up, making the burly soldier drop them both and step back.

Helping the girl up to her feet, PJ asked, "Are you okay?"

She just looked at him with big, brown eyes, stunned. He took that as a 'yes.' Turning around and putting himself between the Conspirium soldiers and the girl, he said, "I'm the one you're looking for. That was my time machine you destroyed, and I'm pretty ticked off about that, to put it nicely."

"It's that beaver-duck!" One of the back-up soldiers realized. "He can talk, too?"

"He's a freaking mutant!" another exclaimed.

PJ felt the eyes of all the villagers on him, many of them inspecting something other than the dirt around their shoes for the first time since the encounter started.

"I prefer to be called a 'platypus,' thank you very much," he stated.

The leader stopped nursing the bite mark and growled. "We'll be taking you in, little dude. The Kingdom has forbidden the use of all time machines, and we've got a few questions for you as well."

PJ cracked his knuckles. "Come and get me."

Taken aback by the platypus' confident exterior, the leader backed a step away. "Urgh, all right, you three! Arrest him," he ordered the three other soldiers. They shared a quick glance with one another before charging simultaneously.

Two seconds and a couple of dull thuds later, the three of them were lying motionless, facedown in the dirt.

"Care to try again?" PJ returned his attention to the leader.

All the color had drained from the man's face. He threw the whip in his hand to the ground and turned tail to run back to his ship.

"Oh, no you don't!" PJ sallied forward, tripping the soldier up before he could get away.

"Ah! Please, don't hurt me, dude! I'm just a big, yellow-bellied coward!" he grovelled, putting his hands together to plead. "I'm sorry for troubling the kind people of this good town!" He started crying, drenching his sleeve as he hid his face inside the crook of his elbow.

PJ clapped his hands up and down as if dusting them off. "Pathetic. Are you even in the Conspirium? I haven't been this underwhelmed since I fought that one evil scientist with Dad."

"My Pop made me enlist in the Kingdom's military to toughen me up," explained the soldier through a river of tears. "You see, I come from a long line of bullies, it's the family business. But I'm what you might call the black sheep, because I'm really a big wuss."

Something he heard him say made PJ pause. A long line of bullies? That sounded familiar. "What's your name?"

"Tannen Van Stomm."

That confirmed it. This schmuck was one of Buford's descendants. His increasingly loud sobs were grating on PJ's nerves. "I never liked bullies," he commented. With that, he brought his fist down hard on the thick head of Buford's son, or grandson, or whatever he was. His eyes rolled back into their sockets, and he collapsed on the ground, joining the other soldiers.

It was suddenly very quiet. PJ looked up and remembered that he was still under all the villagers' intense scrutiny. "Uh," he stammered to break the awkward silence, sheepishly rubbing the back of his head. "Everybody's okay now, right?"

All at once, every villager broke out in cheers and jubilation.

"Thank you for saving us!"

"It was nothing, really…"

"The prophecy has come true!"

"That's just nonsense…"

"Yes, the prophecy! Our hero has come to save us!"

"I'm definitely not a hero…"

"Our village is finally free!"

"They'll probably send more once they find out what happened. The village is only in more danger now, if anything..."

The swarming crowd was causing PJ to start to feel a little claustrophobic. Fortunately, the people started to make way when the mayor came forward. "Excuse me, pardon me, coming through." PJ directed his attention to the man and his daughter, who walked with him hand-in-hand.

Before the mayor said anything, he fell to the ground in a deep bow to PJ. "Thank you for saving my daughter," he said, making PJ feel more uncomfortable than ever. "I am forever in your debt. My name is Jantz, and I am the mayor of this humble village."

"And my name is Sophie! Nice to meet you!" Sophie glanced at her father, noticing his genuflection, and mimicked it, bowing in the same way.

PJ stared, jaw slack, mouth agape, totally at a loss at how he should react to this new development. After a few awkward moments, the mayor lifted his eyes and prompted him. "What is your name, time traveler?"

Clearing his throat, PJ composed himself. "PJ. It's PJ, the platypus."

"Welcome, PJ the platypus," Mayor Jantz said, rising to his feet. "It is my honor to welcome you to the town of Villagetown―I know, naming things is not one of our strong points."

"...Yeah," was all PJ said, not knowing what else to do.

The mayor looked like he was expecting the platypus to say more, and when PJ didn't, he glanced at the watching villagers before he continued. "Won't you stay in our humble village, time traveler? As my thanks, I'll offer you a place to stay in my home. My wife will be cooking―"

"I'm gonna stop you right there," PJ interrupted. "I've seen enough movies to know how this is going to play out. You want to convince me to stay and protect your village from the Conspirium, probably think I'm 'the chosen one' or some great hero, or something. You even believe in some prophecy that I'm supposed to fulfill and free your people. Well, I hate to break it to you, but that isn't what this is. Unless your prophecy says something about me getting back to my time, I want nothing to do with it."

It was the mayor's turn to be stunned, jaw slack, mouth agape. "How-how did you know all that? Er, I don't know what you mean by this 'Conspirium,' but to have already deduced the rest? It must be true!" He turned to the villagers. "Our time traveler must be using his 'self-own,' the legendary technology from that past that allowed any person who had one to know anything!"

As one, all the people in the crowd absorbed the same shocked look as their mayor. PJ didn't like the whispers that were being tossed around in his every direction.

"Actually," he said, putting his hands up, "it's called a 'cell phone,' and they don't work like that, and I don't have one." The whispers only seemed to increase.

The mayor looked fidgety from the multiplication of murmuring as well. "I implore you to reconsider, great warrior. As the mayor of Villagetown, it is my responsibility to protect the people living here. To be frank, no one here has ever stood up to the UNA Kingdom soldiers the way you did just now. I know we know hardly anything about you, but if you have any enmity towards the Kingdom and its officials at all, I would humbly ask you to stay and protect my people. The times are hard. We live at the borders of the Forbidden Mountain, making it difficult to grow our crops. And of what we do grow, we pay half that in taxes to the Kingdom, leaving barely any left for us to eat. I know I'm asking a lot, but someone like you could really help us. With you on our side, we might finally be able to drive off the Governor of this land and be rid of his greed. If you do this, we would be eternally in your debt. We would give you anything we have the power to grant."

PJ rolled his eyes at this. Typical storyline, people are being oppressed by some evil tyrant, a good guy comes along, helps them overthrow said tyrant, usually the hero then gets the girl, yada yada, blah blah blah.

"What if I refuse?" he tested.

The crowd suddenly fell silent, making PJ look around. Nobody looked happy he said that. Even the mayor wore a pained expression. "Of course, we can't force you to stay here," he said softly, "and even if we tried, Great Warrior, we are but a small community of farmers, not fighters. You would have no trouble disposing of us as you did these soldiers."

He paused there, letting PJ have more time to take in the poor and pathetic state of the village. "That said, you have created quite a stir here, no doubt the Kingdom will soon discover what you did and follow you wherever you go. As the mayor, I would be blamed for allowing you to escape. Chances are I'd be executed for that offence," he added sadly, glancing at his daughter, who had left to go play with some of the other children. "But as long as Sophie is safe, that is all that matters to me."

PJ knew it was a guilt trip, but it worked. "Look, it's not that I don't want to help you," he started. "I have a very big bone to pick with the―Kingdom? We called them 'the Conspirium' in my time. They took everything from me and marooned me to this time. I hate them more than anything. But this is bigger than you and me. Here's the thing: everything you know is wrong. Hold up, that came out wrong. What I mean is, none of this was supposed to happen. It wasn't supposed to be possible, but somehow, the Conspirium altered the timeline. The future was supposed to be peaceful, not some dystopian scene straight out of 1984. That's―eh?"

Most of the villagers that were still listening wore confused looks. PJ guessed in their pre-technological state, they didn't really understand how time travel worked. They probably also didn't understand the George Orwell reference, either.

"Look, those soldiers destroyed my time machine, and therefore my only way to get back to my time. If I could just somehow go back, I could fix everything. That's all I want. Unfortunately, something tells me you don't have a time machine lying around, so you don't have anything to offer me. It's nothing personal."

The mayor brought his hand to his chin as he took in this information. "...I see," he breathed, realizing the full scope of PJ's predicament. "Perhaps we can come to an agreement then. There is a rumor that the Governor has a time machine in his mansion. I don't know if this is true, but it's the best I can offer you. Now you see, our interests do in fact intersect. An old prophecy says that one day, a great warrior will come to our town to save us from the heavy yoke we bear. You can choose whether to believe it or not, if you wish. But if you help us drive out the Governor, I, Jantz, Mayor of Villagetown, give you my word that that time machine's yours."

That was all PJ needed to hear. "Mr. Mayor, you've got yourself a deal."