Fowl Manner

When your baby brother from nine years in the future appears, you know that there is a good reason. Artemis knew, that although he appeared to be a bit of space, for lack of better words, he didn't just randomly decide "hey. I wanna go back in time". There was a good reason as to why he did, so naturally, as soon as Artemis got off the communicator with Holly, his first order of business was to find that reason.

They were sat at the dining room table, Artemis sitting across from the future Beckett. The twins were in their high chairs, on the corner of the table between the two boys. Butler was fixing the group a quick lunch, popping his head in every two the three minutes, just to make sure none of the boys were harmed. Artemis may have trusted this "future Beckett" but Butler still had his doubts.

Artemis also had his concerns about him, but not for the same reasons. It was the fact that this Beckett just casually revealed events that were to happen in the future.

"If I'm in the past, there's this pizza place we must go to. It shut down about two years ago…although I guess since I'm in the past, it will shut down in..." he paused, quickly doing the math in his head, "Well, let's see, it shut down on September 18th, 2017, so I guess that would be two years, two months and five days." He smiled, "They had the best pizza ever made, but unfortunately, the owner died. Rumor has it, that he was killed by a mobster in Chicago. I actually researched it a little last month. There's this conspiracy that the owner, at one point in his life, angered this business man with mob ties. A week after he got out of prison, they guy was found dead in the shop with a bullet through his head. The entire area was bought up and closed down soon after."

That story left Artemis with a bad feeling. Everything in Artemis' gut told him, to just tell Beckett to leave the story at that. He could already guess who that businessman might be.

"Jon Spiro! I think that's what the guy's name was. Not the pizza shop owner, but mafia-businessman guy. It's such a great name isn't it? Jon Spiro…it's the perfect villains name!"

Artemis let out a heavy sigh. This was probably something he wasn't supposed to know. He probably was the one who got to deal with that, in the future.

"Wonderful," Artemis said, sarcastically, and then tried to get the thought out of his mind. He had at least seven years to deal with that problem. He had more important things to deal with, at the moment. "Beckett, speaking of you being here in the past, I have to ask, why are you here?"

He wondered if he should even be asking that. It was completely contradicting what he was thinking before, not knowing future events before they happened. Besides Beckett was having no trouble telling the future as it was, and none of them had dropped dead yet, and maybe Beckett was supposed to reveal these things. Artemis knew from experience that time travel worked in strange ways. Back when their mother was possessed by Opal Koboi, for instance. They traveled back eight years in time, to try and cure a disease him mom didn't have in the first place, and it was that time travel trip that caused the whole situation.

Artemis believed in order, and that things always worked a certain way. He would be willing to bet it would be the same case with Beckett. If they learned about future events in the meantime, then, they would just have to deal with that.

Artemis noticed that Beckett's face suddenly paled, and he glanced down to avoid Artemis' eyes. He let out a nervous laugh and scratched behind the top of his ear.

"Well, you see," he started to say, "I had a reason, but I honestly don't remember what it was."

Artemis took in a deep breath, and closed his eyes. He didn't remember the reason he traveled nine years back in time. For once in his life, Artemis didn't know how to respond. He rubbed his temple, and began tapping his fingers again, in patterns of fives. That was an upside of Atlantis, perhaps, was he always had a way to help him keep his calm.

"Alright. You have no idea what you traveled here. Do you remember your means of getting here?"

Beckett just stared blankly at him, and gave the same nervous laugh.

"No," he muttered. Artemis looked over to the twins. He wondered if the realized the irony of the entire situation.

Maybe it wasn't entirely his fault. The time vortex had many odd effects on the body. Because of it, Artemis had two of his fingers reversed, and one haze eye. N1 had once made the joke to him that seemed to fit the situation perfectly.

"If you end up with a third arm coming out of your forehead, you know trip was a successful journey."

Maybe this was for the best. Looking back on the rest of his escapades, this was about the time when one of the group would be put in a highly dangerous, life threatening situation, and the last thing Artemis needed at the moment was to think himself out of a situation. The last time he was put into a life threatening situation with Atlantis Complex, he almost got himself killed. Of course, the mental illness was much better than it had been those four months ago, but none the less.

Then again, for all he knew, Beckett could have been sent back to the past to retrieve something that would prevent the "zombie apocalypse" that everybody's been talking about.

It was at that moment, a loud shattering sound came from a room upstairs, getting everybody's attention.

As quick as one of his bullets, Butler came running through the room, going to check on what that was. He knew whatever it was, it wasn't pleasant. Glass didn't just shatter.

"Stay down here, you two!" Butler commanded, as he zipped past them. The two quickly nodded their heads, not intending to disobey the bodyguard's orders.

Butler didn't disbelieve in coincidences. He could think of at least two times in his life, where a seemingly dire situation just turned out to be nothing more than a series of coincidences. That being said, he also knew that coincidences were very unlikely.

The fact that the glass shattering noise came right after this "Beckett" had come from wherever it was he came from was no coincidence.

Beckett's head injury, although it was relatively mild, Butler knew that it was inflicted by somebody. He was going to mention this to Artemis, but Beckett woke up before he was given the chance. That meant that before this Beckett came here, somebody attacked him. That meant there was somebody in the future after the boy, and it was very possible that somebody could have followed Beckett into the past.

Butler pinpointed the location of the room; it was the twin's room. What concerned him was that it was right next to the room Beckett was discovered in.

He walked in, and sure enough, the floor was covered with little glass triangles. Once more, those little glass shards had a familiar tinge of red. The glass didn't just shatter, somebody had jumped through it. He ran to the window the check for any signs of a person, but there was none. Just more glass.

This was bizarre. The fact that this person was able to jump two stories down and not lay in a broken heap below, meant that this was a professional. Once more, this person had jumped through the glass, as opposed to just opening the window. Butler would only have done that, if he was absolutely desperate, or unless...

"It was a distraction," he realized. Somebody knew he would check on the loud noise, leaving the boys unprotected.

"D'Arvit."

Sorry this one is short, guys. I had more, but I compared it with what I have written for the fourth chapter, and decided it worked better with that chapter. Besides, always fun to leave on a cliffhanger, right?

So, as somebody pointed out to me, telling people of the experiment probably was bad for the experiment. However, the reviews were nice, and greatly appreciated. Thanks guys!

So yeah. All I can say is, Happy Thanksgiving everybody! Of course, I know a lot of you don't celebrate it, but in that case, just have a amazing Thursday!

Jeanne