“Oh my God, no! Filbert? Was that him?”

Acheron seemed to be enjoying himself.

“ ‘Unavoidably detained’ is a ChronoGuard euphemism for a time aggregation, Thursday. I’m surprised you didn’t know that. Caught outside the herenow. Sixty years piled onto him in less than a minute. It’s little surprise he didn’t want you to see him.”

There hadn’t been any girl in Tewkesbury after all. I had heard about time dilations and temporal instabilities from my father. In the world of the Event, the Cone and the Horizon, Filbert Snood had been unavoidably detained. The tragedy of it was, he never felt he could tell me. It was then, as I hit my lowest, that Acheron had turned and fired. It was as he had planned it.

I walked slowly back to my room and sat on the bed feeling utterly dejected. Tears come easily to me when no one is about. I wept copiously for about five minutes and felt a great deal better, blew my nose noisily then switched on the television as a distraction. I rattled through the channels until I chanced across the Toad News Network. It was more about the Crimea, of course.

“Still on the subject of the Crimea,” announced the anchorwoman, “the Goliath Corporation Special Weapons Division has unveiled the latest weapon in the struggle against the Russian aggressors. It is hoped that the new Ballistic Plasma Energy Rifle—code-named ‘Stonk’—will be the decisive weapon to change the tide of the war. Our defense correspondent James Backbiter takes us through it.”

The scene changed to a close-up of an exotic-looking weapon handled by a soldier in military SpecOps uniform.

“This is the new Stonk plasma rifle, unveiled today by the Goliath Special Weapons Division,” announced Backbiter, standing next to the soldier on what was obviously a test range. “We can’t tell you very much about it for obvious reasons, but we can show its effectiveness and report that it uses a bolt of concentrated energy to destroy armor and personnel up to a mile away.”

I watched in horror as the soldier demonstrated the new weapon. Invisible bolts of energy tore into the target tank with the power of ten of our howitzers. It was like an artillery piece in the palm of your hand. The barrage ended and Backbiter asked a colonel a couple of obviously posed questions as soldiers paraded with the new weapon in the background.

“When do you suppose the frontline troops will be issued with Stonk?”

“The first weapons are being shipped now. The rest will be supplied just as soon as we can set up the necessary factories.”

“And finally, its effect on the conflict?”

A small amount of emotion flickered on the colonel’s face.

“I predict Stonk will have the Russians suing for peace within a month.”

“Oh, shit,” I murmured out loud. I’d heard this particular phrase many times during my time in the military. It had supplanted the hoary old “over by Christmas” for sheer fatuousness. It had always, without exception, been followed by an appalling loss of life.