Tempus Frangit
By Denham Forrest, writing as Misnomer Jones
Tempus Frangit, Capitulus III
It was an interesting night after Sylvia and I eventually got to bed. I'll admit that I had been... well, sucking up -- I suppose you could call it -- all that Ciera and Chaise laid on for my benefit. Boy those two had been all over me, especially Ciera.
Er, I think I should clarify that; when I say all-over me, I mean in the figurative sense, not the physical.
Mind you, I had been working on -- what had I thought was -- a cunning plan. Well, I kind of had it figured, that if persuasion wouldn't bring Sylvia back into line -- she and Rose had still been blatantly playing-up to those four tossers from the instant they'd arrived. And, what with Sylvia enjoying all those compliments liberally thrown her way by all the different guys we'd met during the day; a little too much for my liking, as well -- then, I figured that perhaps a little jealousy might work.
It proved to be a double edged sword. Sylvia was aroused... oh, I was sure of that all right; remember we'd been married almost ten years. But she was also extremely pissed with me, because I'd spent most of the evening, "With those painted harlots!" Sylvia's words, not mine.
Yeah well, I gave back as good as I received. I suggested that Sylvia's annoyance was tantamount to the kettle calling the pot black, an analogy that Sylvia didn't appear to understand. And I reminded Sylvia that all games have to have two teams at least. If she wanted to play games, then I was very likely to want to play as well
At the time I just hoped that the plan would work. But later, for some reason, I had my doubts. Best plans of mice and men, and all that gobble-de-gook.
-----
The next morning two different members of the team had replaced our minders. Handsome and pretty youngsters again and dressed in yellow; so that led Doug and I to believe that they were not there just to keep us entertained for the day.
After breakfast we all took a walk in the dome and watched some folks playing an incomprehensible ball game. But shortly after, we came across a group of people sitting around playing chess. Well, a slight variation on chess as we know it, but that didn't stop Doug from having a go; once he'd studied them playing at it for a while. His opponents went easy on him until he got the hang of their rules and then the games grew quite intense. I must admit that I got sucked in as well, and played a couple of games myself.
It was while we were doing so, that we lost the girls completely.
Our two minders looked distinctly uncomfortable, when Doug and I demanded to know where the girls had disappeared to, and claimed that they had been so engrossed in our games of chess (or whatever they called it), that they hadn't seen the going of them.
"Bollocks!" Was Doug's eloquent reply, and then he marched off in the direction of a couple of the bodyguards -- or security guys -- who been trying to follow us around without us noticing them.
Those guys weren't too clever when it came to covert operations; I think they were really surprised that Doug and I knew they were there. All very stupid of them, because those yellow shirts they wore, really made them stand out from the crowd.
George had it figured that wherever the girls had gone, there would be at least two more of those yellow shirts trailing along behind them somewhere. He took everyone by surprise when – after one of the yellow shirts had claimed he had no idea of whom we were referring – George snatched the communicator whatsit, from the guy's ear, and stuck it in his own.
"Now, I know that there is some bugger on the other end of this bloody thing," Doug ranted, "and I'm also sure that you know exactly where our wives are. If you don't get them back here in five minutes I'll... Oh, hello Adona. Well, what a bleeding surprise! Okay, where are they?"
There was a pause while Adona replied.
"Bloody boat! Those arseholes are terrified of water; what happens if the boat capsizes or something, are our wives supposed to save your crewmen's lives. You get them back here sharpish, Adona! You've gone too far this time!"
Doug listened again; then ranted on. "I've a right to get excited, mate; Rose is my wife! Look, if both of them are not back at the digs within half an hour, they'll be bloody hell to pay, I promise you!"
Adona must have spoken again.
"I don't give a shit what you do in this century Adona. We're of the twentieth century, and back there, wives do not put-it-about, with all and bloody sundry. Now you better use whatever influence you have over those wankers and get our wives back here, sharpish. Then you can ship us back down west today. Bugger your logistical problems, we want as far from you and your people, as possible."
Doug then pulled the unit from his ear, and tossed it back to the very shocked security guy.
"Would you believe it, they've gone out on the Thames in a bloody boat with two of those tossers from Adona's crew!" Doug raved at me and then he stomped off in the direction of our accommodation at a fair-old-lick.
When I got there, there was no sign of the girls. Well, I hadn't expected there would be, not that quick anyway. Doug was attacking what was left of one of the wine bottles from the night before, and he handed me a bottle. I took a good swig and figured that I was beginning to get a taste for the stuff.
Then -- I'm not sure why -- I did a quick count. There were another eight full bottles of the plonk sitting on the sideboard thingy-what's-it.
"Shit!" I thought, "They didn't bring that many bottles in with them last night, someone has topped up our supply. What's the plan here, were Doug and I supposed to get pie-eyed on the stuff and lose track of what's going on."
I grabbed the bottle from Doug's grasp and pointed out the discrepancy in the count to him, and the possible reason for it.
"Shit, they don't know us very well, do they? We could drink several gallons of this muck, and still be stone-cold sober." He replied with a wicked grin.
"That's assuming it hasn't been tampered with in some way, Doug. We still don't know what the game is here."
"Sure we do. They are planning that, when they send us back to our time, our wives are going to be up-the-duff with a couple of these wanker's kids. Exactly why, I have no idea. But that's got to be their plan; stands to bloody reason!"
As George finished his rant, our female minder appeared in the room, and somewhat sheepishly handed me one of their communicator things. I stuck it my ear and said, "Hello."
"George, I'm sorry about this..." Adona's voice replied.
"Adona, I don't give a toss what you're sorry about. I'm with Doug on this. You get our wives back here now, and then you can ship us back down to our cottages, pronto!"
"Just a moment, please George?" Adona replied.
Then I heard nothing for maybe half a minute or so; then.
