The six rotating barrels span and the rounds left these at the rate of precisely six thousand per minute.

And through the cacophony and chaos, the blood and the gore, the dead and the dying, and the protests of a lady whose straw hat had been shot to smithereens, the figure of terror, the Mechanical Murderer, the Automated Assassin, the Clockwork Cain, the Synthetic Sanguinarian, the alliterative emptier of the thesaurus, marched forward.

“Duck!” cried Will.

But Tim was ahead of him.

And now somewhat below.

Gunfire strafed the stage, bringing an end, not only to the career of the Soldier of Misfortune, who would never again impersonate weather, but also Musgrave Ritual, who had brought joy to literally dozens with his strumming on the old banjo.

“We’re all going to die.” Tim cowered in the foetal position.

Will had nothing to add to this statement, possibly because he didn’t hear it, what with his hands being clapped over his ears and his face pressed as close to the floor as it might be humanly pressed without actually passing through, and the noise of all that gunfire. “Think,” Will told himself. “What happens next? You know what happens next. You know. I’m not sure how you know, but I know that you do.”

Which no doubt made some kind of sense to himself at least.

“I do know,” said Will. And he leapt up. “I’m here,” he shouted, and the brutal weapon turned in his direction.

“Here!” shouted Will. “I’m here. It’s me. Come on, I’m here, shoot me.”

The Engineered Exterminator pressed once more upon the blood-red fire button.

Will dropped to his knees.

Two hundred and fifty-seven rounds shot the fire exit door from its hinges.

Will tugged at Tim.

“It’s ‘run’ again,” he told him.

“An alleyway is an alleyway,” as the twentieth century’s greatest living fictional detective, Lazlo Woodbine, once said. “But a broad with a moustache is an abomination unto the Lord.” And added, “But what the hell, if you’re desperate and your wife’s on vacation in Penge.”

The now legendary Laz knew his stuff when it came to alleyways, although his taste in women was at times somewhat questionable. But be that as it may, and well may it be, an alleyway is an alleyway and an ideal escape route too when it becomes available.

“Run,” bawled Will once more.

But Tim was already running.

They ran down the alleyway with a will, or in Will’s case with a Tim.[5] Will’s long lean legs carried him at considerable speed, and Tim’s legs, although shorter and somewhat stockier, managed, (through the adrenaline rush that fear for one’s life inevitably brings), to keep pace.

They ran up another alleyway. Along another. Across a junction between alleyways, ran further to be on the safe side. And then just a bit more to be absolutely sure that they had outrun their erstwhile Ersatz Executioner.

Then a tad more for safety’s sake.

And then …

“Enough,” gasped Tim, face all red and glazed with sweat. “We’ve lost him. I can’t run any more.”

“Perhaps just a bit further.” Will still had much running left in him.

“Not one step.” And Tim collapsed onto his bottom, breathing heavily.

Will sank down beside him. “Do you know where we are?” he asked.

“You blackguard,” croaked Tim. “You’re not even puffed.”

“I think my heart rate’s up a bit,” said Will. “But I do a lot of running. I’ve got an antique home jogging machine in my bedroom.”

“A what?” Tim felt his own heart. It appeared to be reaching critical mass.

“A physical training machine,” said Will, glancing warily back along the way they had come. “Keeps me fit and keeps my weight down.”

“Down?” Tim asked. “Why would anyone want to keep their weight down?”

“Well …” said Will.

“No,” Tim flapped an exhausted hand about, “I don’t want to know. I’ve just witnessed slaughter and had to run for my very life. This is hardly the time, or the place.”

“Right on both counts,” said Will. “Time is all important and this isn’t the place where we should be.”

“I have an uncle,” puffed Tim. “He lives in Kew Quadrant. We could hide out in his place.”

“We have to get to Chiswick.”

“Why? Who do you know in Chiswick?” Tim took to coughing.

“Not so loud,” said Will. “I don’t know anyone in Chiswick. But that’s where it is, I know it is.”

“Chiswick’s always where it is,” Tim took deep breaths. “And where it should stay, dull place that it remains.”

“Not Chiswick. I’m talking about the time machine.”

Tim managed a “What?”

“The time machine,” said Will. “The one that brought the first automaton here. It returned on automatic pilot to pick up the second one, when the first one was destroyed.”

“‘What?” went Tim once again, followed by, “You know where there’s a time machine?”

“I know it,” said Will. “It’s all in here,” and he tapped at his temple. “The Retro you gave me opened up all those synapses you spoke about, allowed me to access my ancestral memory. All of it, back through generations to Victorian times. I know exactly when the time machine was sent. From which year and from which location. I met the man who built it.”

Tim couldn’t manage another what? So, open-mouthed, he just shook his head and vanished under his hair.

“I can remember being there,” said Will, “because it happened in my past. Because I stole the time machine and travelled back in it. Or will steal the time machine, which I intend to do very shortly.” Will checked his watch. It said Friday. “About half an hour from now,” Will said.

“Stop, stop.” Tim managed that. “‘You travelled back in time. I mean, you’re going to travel back in time? Or—”

“To the Victorian era,” said Will. “And it isn’t at all how you’d expect it to be. Although it was exactly how I expected it to be, because I now have all the ancestral memories of what it was really like inside my head. Although, when I got there I lost them. It’s very complicated.”

“Stop!” Tim waved his hand some more. “Here madness dwells. I want no part of this.”

“Oh God of Good Housekeeping,” went Will. “I remember that too, what happens to you. You don’t want to come with me, Tim. You mustn’t have any part in this. You go straight to your uncle’s. I’ll go to Chiswick alone.”

“No no no,” said Tim. “If there’s really a time machine, I want to see it. There, I’ve got most of my breath back.”

“You don’t want to see it,” said Will.

“I do. I really do.”

“Believe me, you don’t.” Will climbed to his feet. “I have to be off. Where are we?”

“We’re in Chiswick,” said Tim.

“We never are? We didn’t run that far, surely?”

“Believe me, we did. I can recall every aching metre of it.”

“Then this isn’t good. I should have remembered this. I’m not getting all of this right. It’s because I’m trying to change it. Perhaps it can’t be changed.”

“I have to see it,” said Tim, in a forceful tone. “A real time machine. I have to see it.”

“You don’t want to see it. Trust me on this.”

“Trust me on this. I do.”

“Well, you’re not,” said Will. “And I do remember where I am now. And I’m off. Go to your uncle’s, Tim. Stay there for a couple of days. No, actually, it doesn’t matter, you can go home. I’ll sort this out and I’ll see you again, a week yesterday. I’ll meet you on the tram, a week yesterday.”

“A week yesterday?”

“Time travel,” said Will. “You know the old joke.”

“I don’t,” said Tim.

“You do. Bloke walks into a newspaper office and says to the editor, ‘I have the scoop of a lifetime for you, I’ve invented a time machine.’ And the editor, a rather jaded fellow says, ‘Well, I’m rather busy today, could you come back and show it to me –’”