I take a deep breath: ‘He threatened to silence me with his Chronophone and disappeared Leaplings to work for him and stole their DNA to edit a sheep into a sheap so he could smuggle it on the Black Market to sell meat to those who can afford it!’

While I’m speaking, the hooded figures hold hands with Le Temps in the middle. He smiles but looks angry and his voice doesn’t sound buttery any more.

‘The perfect sentence,’ he says.

The hooded figures nod and freeze. I know what’s going to happen. They’re going to leap and Le Temps will leap with them like luggage because he’s an Annual. I’ve heard of Annuals being time-travelled before but never seen it. The moment before they leap, Le Temps winks at Millennia.

‘Au revoir, old girl!’

He does it so quickly I almost don’t see it. But I do. You only wink at someone you’re in love with, so Le Temps must be in love with Millennia like she’s in love with him.

Then the hooded giants face each other and squeeze hands and the three of them disappear into thin air.

‘I hope he gets ad infinitum,’ I say.

Millennia stares at me so long I turn my head to one side.

‘Innocent until proven guilty. Many things have changed since 2020 – laws, sentences, prisons – but not the foundations of our legal system.’

‘He’s a criminal.’

‘He’s a GENIUS!’

Millennia no longer sounds like Millennia. She’s the Double M, 0 to 10 in one second, her hands are shaking and her face looks about to fracture into a thousand pieces. Le Temps was her specialist subject.

‘He was, and IS, a trusted colleague. But YOU and Mrs S,’ she looks at MC2, ‘have betrayed me. You’ll pay for this.’ She pauses and fixes me with her cat’s-eye, then goes into loudspeaker mode.

‘Elle Bíbi-Imbelé Ifíè,’ she pronounces my name perfectly, like she can speak Izon, ‘again you have thwarted me. You have destroyed a CENTURY of work. And if it takes me every second of a century, I will destroy YOU.’

Chapter 21:00: 2100

Chapter 21:00

2100