The Goliath Corporation’s pernicious hold over the nation was not universally appreciated, and I had a far greater reason to dislike them—the last Goliath employee I had dealt with was an odious character by the name of Jack Schitt. We had tricked him into a copy of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven,” a place in which I hoped he could do no harm.

“Schitt-Hawse, eh?” I said. “Any relation to Jack?”

“He was—is—my half brother,” said Schitt-Hawse slowly, “and believe me, Ms. Next, he wasn’t working for us when he planned to prolong the Crimean War in order to create demand for Goliath weaponry.”

“And you never knew he had sided with Hades either, I suppose?”

“Of course not!” replied Schitt-Hawse in an offended tone.

“If you had known, would you admit it?”

Schitt-Hawse scowled and said nothing. Braxton coughed politely and continued:

“And this is Mr. Chesterman of the Brontë Federation.”

Chesterman blinked at me uncertainly. The changes I had wrought upon Jane Eyre had split the federation. I hoped he was one of the ones who preferred the happier ending.

“Back there is Captain Marat of the ChronoGuard,” continued Braxton. Marat, at this moment in his time, was a schoolboy of about twelve. He looked at me with interest. The ChronoGuard were the SpecOps division that took care of Anomalous Time Ripplation—my father had been one or was one or would be one, depending on how you looked at it.

“Have we met before?” I asked him.

“Not yet,” he replied cheerfully, returning to his copy of The Beano.

“Well!” said Braxton, clapping his hands together. “I think that’s everyone. Next, I want you to pretend we’re just not here.”

“Observers, yes?”

“Absolutely. I—”

Braxton was interrupted by a slight disturbance offstage.

“The bastards!” yelled a high voice. “If the network dares to replace my Monday slot with reruns of Bonzo the Wonder Hound I’ll sue them for every penny they have!”

A tall man of perhaps fifty-five had walked into the studio accompanied by a small group of assistants. He had handsome chiseled features and a luxuriant swirl of white hair that looked as though it had been carved from polystyrene. He wore an immaculately tailored suit and his fingers were heavily weighed down with gold jewelry. He stopped short when he saw us.

“Ah!” said Adrian Lush disdainfully. “SpecOps!”

His entourage flustered around him with lots of energy but very little purpose. They seemed to hang on his every word and action, and I suddenly felt a great sense of relief that I wasn’t in the entertainments business.