Garrick sighed, shook his head, and blinked at the fanciful notion that had popped unbidden into his mind. Then, with only a moment’s hesitation, he tucked the boy inside his greatcoat and left through the same window he had come in by.

In the wormhole, Riley would have cried if he could.

Garrick murdered my parents and stole me away, he realized, and knew it was true. And for all these past years he has been swearing that he saved me from a bunch of street cannibals in the alleys of Bethnal Green. But it was he who orphaned me.

Riley allowed this statement to repeat itself in his consciousness, in case he forgot when he woke.

Garrick killed my parents. Garrick killed my parents.

Riley did not want to forget, because remembering this fact would steel his resolve.

For one day soon I must bring Albert Garrick to justice or be snuffed out me own self.

Their journey through the wormhole ended gradually as spacetime dissipated around them like cloudy fragments of a deep and detailed dream. Riley and Chevron Savano found themselves in a Victorian London basement, both smiling broadly in the grip of what Charles Smart called the Zen Ten.

“Garrick did in my whole family, except my brother, Tom,” said Riley. “I am truly an orphan.”

Chevie hugged the boy. “Hey, so am I. Two orphans, together against the world.”

“And my father was a policeman, like you.”

“Like me?”

“An agent in the FBI. He showed me his shining badge and his Timekey.”

“I saw that vision too, somehow,” said Chevie. “Your dad was a Fed. How did that happen?” This, she decided, was an important detail that she would definitely come back to when her mind was a little sharper.

“He was protecting someone who wore a horseshoe ring,” continued Riley.

“Horseshoe ring,” repeated Chevie, a little dopily, like a patient coming out of anesthetic. “And neither of us is a monkey.”

The basement had the same shape as it would in the future, differing only in the bare walls and floor of compacted earth, with brick pillars to support the rooms above.

Chevie stamped her foot and the ground resounded with a hollow bong. “A metal plate. We need that to land in one piece. This plate is specially designed to act as a guide for the wormhole, like a lightning rod.”

“I say we dismantle it,” said Riley, raising his hand as though voting in the House of Commons. “Perhaps Garrick will find his hands growing out of his backside if he manages to follow us.”

Chevie was trying to think beyond the time fugue, and Riley’s joking was not helping.

“Stop with the cracks,” she said, giggling. “We should check ourselves to make sure nothing is out of place. Sober thinking now.”

“I am sober. You won’t let me drink, not even beer.”