“Well, it’s a bit of a coincidence, wouldn’t you say?”

“What is?”

“Nelson and Wellington, two great English national heroes both being shot early on during their most important and decisive battles.”

“What are you suggesting?”

“That French revisionists might be involved.”

“But it didn’t affect the outcome of either battle,” I asserted. “We still won on both occasions!”

“I never said they were good at it.”

“That’s ludicrous!” I scoffed. “I suppose you think the same revisionists had King Harold killed in 1066 to assist the Norman invasion!”

But Dad wasn’t laughing. He replied with some surprise:

“Harold? Killed? How?”

“An arrow, Dad. In his eye.”

“English or French?”

“History doesn’t relate,” I replied, annoyed at his bizarre line of questioning.

“In his eye, you say?— Time is out of joint,” he muttered, scribbling another note.

“What’s out of joint?” I asked, not quite hearing him.

“Nothing, nothing. Good job I was born to set it right—”

“Hamlet?” I asked, recognizing the quotation.

He ignored me, finished writing and snapped the notebook shut, then placed his fingertips on his temples and rubbed them absently for a moment. The world joggled forward a second and refroze as he did so. He looked about nervously.

“They’re onto me. Thanks for your help, Sweetpea. When you see your mother, tell her she makes the torches burn brighter—and don’t forget to try and dissuade her from painting the bedroom.”

“Any color but mauve, right?”

“Right.”

He smiled at me and touched my face. I felt my eyes moisten; these visits were all too short. He sensed my sadness and smiled the sort of smile any child would want to receive from their father. Then he spoke:

“For I dipped into the past, far as SpecOps-12 could see—”

He paused and I finished the quote, part of an old ChronoGuard song Dad used to sing to me when I was a child.

“—saw a vision of the world and all the options there could be!”

And then he was gone. The world rippled as the clock started again. The barman finished his sentence, the birds flew onto their nests, the television came back on with a nauseating ad for SmileyBurgers, and over the road the cyclist met the asphalt with a thud.

Everything carried on as normal. No one except myself had seen Dad come or go.

I ordered a crab sandwich and munched on it absently while sipping from a mocha that seemed to be taking an age to cool down. There weren’t a lot of customers and Stanford, the owner, was busy washing up some cups. I put down my paper to watch the TV when the Toad News Network logo came up.

Toad News was the biggest news network in Europe. Run by the Goliath Corporation, it was a twenty-four-hour service with up-to-date reports that the national news services couldn’t possibly hope to match. Goliath gave it finance and stability, but also a slightly suspicious air. No one liked the Corporation’s pernicious hold on the nation, and the Toad News Network received more than its fair share of criticism, despite repeated denials that the parent company called the shots.