The Amazing Adventures of the Sensational Squirrelman

Trans Temporal Issue Seven!

People call me… the Sentinel! I stand a lonely vigil, watching all that is, was, and might be! I have seen the Sensational Squirrelman carried beyond my immediate line of sight… but gazing through the mists and sands of time show me that he has been hurtled beyond the eons of time! He seems to have been summoned into a nether realm where time is at a standstill – where dwells the Timekeeper, the Guardian of all Time! But what does the chronological caretaker have in store for the Sensational Squirrelman? And what will our hero discover, beyond the old adage that…

A Squirrel in Time Saves Nine!

Squirrelman opened his eyes. He was no longer riding the cosmic radiation wave. He wasn’t covered in Mobius particles either, part of his mind noticed. The rest of his mind was surveying his surroundings.

Or perhaps lack of surroundings was a better way to describe his situation.

He was lying face down on an endless plain of fine white sand, stretching as far as he could see. There was something odd about the horizon… and the sky was black as night, but the light conditions were… closer to just after the sun had set, an odd twilight quality. And above… stars were whirling, faster enough to see, racing across the pitch black sky. He was looking around, and realized what the odd thing about the horizon was… instead of being convex, it was concave – the far edges bent up toward the sky, rather than bending away from the sky. Matt was confused and sore and… cold. The air was still but he was cold.

And there… in the distance, a structure of some sort. He squinted, trying to get a better look. It seemed to be a castle or something… way far off.

“Well, there ain’t anything else around,” he said, his voice falling flat in the curiously still air, and the cold stars overhead whirled in the night sky.

He started walking and walked. He walked and walked and walked, the castle never getting any closer. He walked for what must have been hours, but the castle never got any larger on the horizon. It stayed far away, out of reach. After a while he tried running, and then he tried his squirrel-powered leaping, and the castle never got any closer. He wasn’t getting tired, or hungry, or thirsty, either, he realized. He started counting his steps to measure how far he’d gone, and lost count around ten thousand or so… and still, the castle was no closer. Finally he turned his back on the castle… and he sw he had been leaving no footprints in the fine white sand. He turned around to find the castle, to make sure he had something to keep his bearings.

The castle loomed huge right behind him. He’d stopped and turned at its gates.

It was smooth as glass, a light pink almost white in colour, looming huge in odd sinuous shapes… until Matt realized it seems to be hourglasses piled on each other, huge hourglasses looming like giants against the disorienting whirling star filled sky.

Squirrelman jumped back instinctively.

“Whoa,” he muttered. “That’s… whoa.”

He stepped forward cautiously, looking for a way into the hourglass castle. It was then he heard not a sound, more like the memory of a sound… a tick-tock sound. He walked toward the sound – it seemed to be coming from the largest, most central of the hourglass buildings in this peculiar complex.

Rounding the corner he saw a huge hourglass shaped door leading inside the largest of the buildings… he stepped forward, and the tick tock sound grew louder. Inside the building the soft pearly pink darkened to a deep reddish orange. And gone were the sinuous shapes of hourglasses, replaced instead with ticking gears, moving against each other, odd clicking and huge clunking and all tick tocking. Pendulums swung back and forth, back and forth, and gears turned.

Squirrelman climbed a series of interconnected gears heading for what looked to be a hourglass shaped door high above. He scampered up a swinging pendulum and climbed up a series of giant gears and reached the hourglass door, stepping outside once more.

A quick look around and the obvious theme of the palace made it clear to him that he was stepping out of the shadow caster of a sun dial…. One that cast no shadow in the odd twilight of the night sky with the spinning stars.

“Squirrelman,” a voice called from behind him. He turned and saw an old man… or rather, a young man’s face with long grey hair, hands gnarled with age curled around a walking staff with an hourglass set into the tip as a head piece. The odd old young man stood with erect athletic bearing, but leaned heavily on the walking staff. He wore long blood red robes trimmed in hourglass patterns of silver grey. He had no eyes, but dark pits held silver stars that stared at Matt with the intensity of a winter sky.

“That’s me,” Matt quipped, and he realized he meant it.

“I… am the Timekeeper,” the old young man said. “I am the Guardian of All Time.”

“Oh yeah?” Matt said. “That got benefits? Medical, dental?”

“Squirrelman… here, time has no meaning. And all the meaning in the world. Do you wish to banter words, or will you listen to the wisdom I seek to impart on you?”

“Shoot,” Squirrelman said.

“The use of the Kirby Gauntlet was ill-advised,” the chronological caretaker said.

“No kidding.”

“And when it touched its evil counterpart… all time was shattered in that instant. And your comrades were scattered by the winds of time throughout the eons of the past and the future.”

“That doesn’t sound good.”

“It is not. Their presence in eras not their own have upset the equilibrium of time… the ripples of which will cause the shattering of all time for all time.”

“You lost me.”

“Time is not a river… time is not a road. Time is an eternal instant, existing at all times for all times. Time is not linear, cause and effect are mortal constructs.”

“Nope, still don’t get you.”

The Timekeeper sighed.

“Time doesn’t happen one second at a time, one minute followed by the next. Time exists all at the same time. It’s only the limited mortal mind which cannot comprehend this and thus only allows itself to experience time on a moment by moment basis. This is why some afternoons disappear in an instant, and why some hours seem to take forever.”

Squirrelman crossed his arms.

“Okay, you’re giving me a headache,” Matt said. “The Sterling Squad are lost in time, I got that much. If they stay there it’s bad, right?”

“Yes… and no,” the Timekeeper said.

“Enigmatic prick,” Squirrelman retorted.

“Because of the Kirby Gauntlet meeting the Gauntlet Sinister, your friends have always existed in those other times… and must remain there.”

“I thought you said their staying there was bad.”

“They have always been there… and never existed there before. They must not remain… but removing them will forever alter the flow of time.”

“And there’s my headache again.” Squirrelman put his hands on his hips. “Look, just tell me what I have to do to save them and I will."

The Timekeeper waved his free hand and a grey metal watch, like a stopwatch with a metal facing, appeared in the air in front of Squirrelman, glowing slightly. Matt took it and pushed on of the buttons on its side. It was ticking slightly, and the facing had nine gems set around the dial. It had no minute or second or hour hands at all, but instead had a spinning dial with a grooved point .

“Take this timepiecer,” the Timekeeper said. “You must sail the winds of time, find your friends, and at an opportune time, use the timepiecer on them. It will slice off a split second of their selves from them, which will be returned to their proper time.”

“So I do what?” Squirrelman said, pushing one of the buttons. The spinning dial stopped spinning, pointing at one of the nine gems.

Squirrelman winked out of existence.

The Timekeeper smiled.

Prince Rothgar of the Long Tooth Plains People leapt upon the back of the great thunder lizard, stabbing it with the spear he had made from the longtooth fang that had killed his father. Prince Rothgar knew this great thunder lizard, it was a hate of the old times. He stabbed and stabbed and it snapped its huge maw at him, but could not reach him where he stood, riding its great back.

“Go!” cried Little Spawn, his brother’s son. “Kill the great thunder lizard, Prince Rothgar!”

“Little Spawn, beware!” Prince Rothgar cried. The Great Thunder Lizard had heard his brother’s son’s cried of excitement and turned to snap it’s arm-long teeth at the youth.

“Brother Bear, give me strength!” Prince Rothgar cried, calling on the brother totem.

Squirrelman watched Joe Sterling, clad in a fur loincloth, hair long, several days growth of beard on his face, grab the Tyrannosaurus Rex by the jaw and force hard, snapping the dinosaur’s jaw but not killing it. But then, Matt himself was wearing a grey squirrel fur loincloth and leggings, and a cloak of squirrel tails, a thick wooden mask carved like a hideous squirrel face strapped across his face, so who was he to judge Joe’s fashion sense? Matt had watched Joe for two days as he had tracked the path of destruction of the T Rex… he had stopped wondering how primitive humans and dinosaurs could exits together. After all the things he’d seen as Squirrelman, it seemed perfectly reasonable and believable.

The T Rex stumbled into the tree Squirrelman was hiding in and Matt slipped off the slick vined tree branch he’d been crouched upon.

“The Great Grey Squirrel God!” Little Spawn yelled, throwing himself prostrate.

“No time for that!” Squirrelman cried, grabbing Little Spawn and jumping high into the trees as Prince Rothgar stabbed the Great Thunder Lizard at the base of its head, where the spine connected to the skull.

The T Rex fell to the ground and thrashed out its life on the jungle floor.

Squirrelman flipped off the branch, still carrying Little Spawn over his shoulder like a potato sack, to the ground below.

“Great Squirrel God,” Prince Rothgar said, going to his knees before the forest spirit made flesh. “You have saved my brother’s son. His life is yours. But I beg you… take mine instead.”

Matt dropped Little Spawn to the ground next to Prince Rothgar.

“Deal,” the Great Grey Squirrel God said, pulling a round metal rock from his skin.

“Hold still,” the Great Grey Squirrel God said to Prince Rothgar. He pushed a lump on the rock and all went still for a moment… and the Great Squirrel God was gone.

“What happened, Prince Rothgar?” Little Spawn asked his Father’s brother.

“I do not know, Son of my Brother,” Prince Rothgar said after a moment. “The Great Grey Squirrel God spared us both.”

“The Super-Teens are on the scene, baby!” Wonder-Boy cried as he and his team crashed through the wall of the Dock Street warehouse that was serving as the headquarters of the Master Planner. He’d kidnapped Go Go Girl and BeBop and was planning on blowing up the Captain Action monument, there across Crater Lake.

Zodiactress summoned the strength of Taurus and lifted the Master Planner’s getaway rocket off the launch pad and threw it in the corner, while Wonder Boy freed Go Go Girl and Bebop. Go Go Girl ran off with a whoosh of speed and her traditional cry, “Go, Go Go Girl, Go!” She and Blue Bow took care of Master Planner’s Rent-a-Goons, Plot, Scheme, Machinate and Intrigue with a zip! and two twangs! Bebop grabbed the Master Planner and held the diminutive costumed arch fiend off the floor.

“Hey daddy-o, chill out,” Bebop jive talked the criminal genius. “You’re just not coooool, cat.”

“Drat you kids!” the Master Planner spat. “I would have gotten away with it, if it weren’t for you and that dratted Squirrel!”

The Silver Squirrel leapt out of the rafters. He’d appeared on the scene a week ago, and once he and the Super-Teens had fought and reconciled and finally teamed up, they had tracked down their disappearing team-mates to this Dock Street warehouse.

Matt didn’t know why he was coated with Mobius particles again but he didn’t mind – he had his costume back at least.

“Can it, creep!” the Silver Squirrel spat. “Where are Rag Doll and Windy?”

“Where, rodent?” the Master Planner laughed. “There!”

The criminal mastermind pointed out to the Captain Action monument where it was in the final stages of construction. He shook himself loose from Bebop’s grip and pushed a large red button on the computer console. A large timer began counting down from ten.

“No!” Matt yelled along with the rest of the Super-Teens. He grabbed Wonder Boy’s ankle just as the handsome teen leapt into the air. Go Go Girl yelled out her power cry, Zodiactress summoned Aquarius to cast the faith-magic she needed to fly everyone over to the monument. Go Go Girl zipped along the water’s surface as Wonder Boy and Silver Squirrel flew through the air, the countdown echoing in their minds.

Nine…

Silver Squirrel dropped from the supreme teen’s ankle and flipped and somersaulted through the scaffolding, yelling out Rag Doll’s and Windy’s names. He hadn’t met them but he knew Windy was Jeannie Sterling, and Rag Doll was Ragdoll’s mother. He had to save them both.

Eight…

Go Go Girl zipped back and forth, while Blue Bow and Bebop tried to find the bomb the Master Planner had planted in the three hundred foot monument.

Seven…

Wonder Boy found the bomb but it was attached to his teammates, who were locked inside airtight glass cylinders.

Six…

Blue Bow tried her best but couldn’t defuse the bomb, and Bebop, the veteran of the group, advised they not try breaking the glass. Go Go Girl made sure there were no innocent bystanders and Zodiactress summoned intellectual Virgo to think of a solution.

Five…

Matt felt the timepiecer press heavily against his side. He could use it, snip off the split second of Windy’s life to return her to her life as Jeannie Sterling, save himself from the explosion he was sure was coming… but the Super-Teens might die, and Rag Doll would never give birth to his girlfriend… Matt decided then and there he hated time travel.

Four…

“Ah dammit,” the Silver Squirrel swore, hot squeezing his claws out and scratching holes in the cylinders as the Super-Teens looked on, shocked at his language.

Three…

Windy and Rag Doll slipped out of their glass cages and Wonder Boy lifted the entire bomb assembly high into the sky.

Two…

The Super-Teens and the Silver Squirrel watched Wonder Boy disappear into the sky.

One…

Wonder Boy tossed the bomb assembly into the stratosphere.

A huge colourful explosion lit the late afternoon sky. Seconds later Wonder Boy flew back to his team where they had gathered on Captain Action’s outstretched arm.

“Take care, kids,” the Silver Squirrel smiled at them, clicking the button on the timepiecer, snipping off the split second of Windy/Jeannie Sterling’s life and disappearing into Action City legend.

Sunset Annie McGraw rode into town, her black horse Midnight and she covered in trail dust and fatigue. She wore a long golden duster and what would have been shiny black boots had they not been covered in dust and mud. She climbed off her old compadre and watered him down, lashing him to the hitching post, then headed into The Plug Nickle to water herself down… with water of a different sort.

She was tall and lean, with hair like a fiery sunset – hence her gunslinger name, Sunset Annie. She was lightning at the art of the quick draw and if she had the drop on you, you were about to meet your Maker. And folks along the Colorado Trail knew it – highwaymen stayed clear of her, because she was known to have a temper and hated those who preyed upon the innocent.

Her long legs carried her into the bar, where the old barman, Spats, was tending bar like he always was. He smiled as he watched her approach. He’d been a lunger from back East, before the war, come to Dry Gulch to keep his lungs from bleeding out.

“Sunset,” he said, pulling out a bottle of whiskey and pouring her a stiff one.

She slammed in back in one long easy gulp.

“Spats,” she greeted him, wiping her lips with the back of her hand.

“Stranger in town,” Spats said, pouring her a second.

“Yeah?” she sipped this one. Spats’ whiskey was watered down but not that watered down. That’s why she kept coming back.

“One o’ them masked men the papers back East is always writin’ about.”

“Yeah? Ain’t never seen one yet.”

“Sunset Annie?” a man’s voice called behind her. She turned, wary.

The man was wearing all grey, his face hidden behind a strip of grey cloth over his eyes and nose, a broad flat-brimmed hat on his head, with what looked to be squirrel tails stitched to the lapels of his long grey duster. She leaned back and casually cleared her irons, her practised eye quickly gauging what kind of threat he was. He was fast, and limber, she saw from the way he moved. But the two-gun rig her wore seemed unfamiliar to his gait. He’d be clumsy with his aim… but faster out of the leather.

“Who’s asking?”

“That’s not important,” Matt said. He’d been tracking her for weeks, and had the saddle sores to prove it.

“Well, stranger, you found her. What do you what with her?” she asked.

Matt couldn’t believe he was facing Molly O’Malley in a quick draw. He had to be quick… or he’d be dead. He hadn’t planned on it going this way, but the gunslinger’s naturally paranoid nature had brought the moment to this inevitable conclusion.

The pair stood there for a long moment, sizing each other up. Around them people cleared away.

Matt drew first – not the guns worn at his side, but the timepiecer at his belt.

Sunset Annie’s bullet passed through the air where the stranger had stood, leaving a hole in the wall Spats would later decide to leave, as the only evidence of the passing of the Grey Ghost, the dead masked man who’d faced Sunset Annie… and disappeared into the legends of the Old West.

“Galloping Galaxies, Jake!” the bubbly, curvaceous blonde in the bubble dome helmet cried. “What are we going to do?”

Jake Starhopper, stalwart captain of Atomic Rocket 117, called the Excelsior, rubbing his square jaw and leaned forward in his command chair.

“Face front, True Believers,” he declared, and his crew grinned.

“Groot!” the huge furry alien beside him howled.

“Indeed, Groot, my friend,” Captain Starhopper nodded.

“Shall I prepare the thermal transometer suits?” the reptilian alien near the sensor equipment asked.

“An excellent idea, Doctor Tesseract,” the handsome captain agreed, eyes squinting.

Matt rolled his eyes. Jerry Sterling was an awful ham.

“What do I do?” Matt asked. Once again, his outfit had changed – greys and silvers still the theme, but more of a jumpsuit type of style, with jacket over top. He’d found himself in the storage compartment of the atomic rocket, and been found a few minutes later by Jake Starhopper and his crew. That had been a few days ago.

“You, my stowaway young friend, will stay here,” Captain Jake said. “The Shark Men of Sigma Prime are no foes for someone untried on the fields of zero gee space battle.”

“Awww, come on!” Matt said.

“I believe they prefer to be called Carcodons, Captain,” the elder reptilian alien corrected, thin chin tendrils wavering calmly.

“Whatever we call them, they’re still fiends,” Jerry/Jake Starhopper declared.

“Preying on the weak and unfortunate along the spaceways. Taking what they want and leaving no one alive to carry the tales of their fiendish deeds… nothing but death follows them, Doctor. But they’ve yet to face Jake Starhopper and the crew of Atomic Rocket 177, the Excelsior!”

“Oh Jake!” the bubble-domed blonde cooed lovingly.

“Thank you Starria, my love,” he said, pulling her close… close enough to kiss, if the bubble dome hadn’t prevented them. She leaned into him, hands caressing his chest.

“Groot!”

“Right you are, my canine companion!” Jake stately decisively. “Let’s meet these fiends head on!”

They all rushed to where Doctor Tesseract was preparing the thermal transometer suits, thing translucent space suits with rocket packs on the back and bubble domed helmets like Starria’s.

“Perhaps I should stay with our young stowaway,” the reptilian alien said, yellow eyes surveying Matt coldly.

“An excellent idea, Doctor,” Jake said, donning his thermal transometer suit and making sure the rocket pack was secure. “Make sure he stays out of trouble, while we face down those shark-headed fiends.”

Matt rolled his eyes.

“Jesus, Jerry,” he muttered, whipping out the timepiecer and disappearing.

A German artillery shell went off nearby. Matt – The Squirrel – grabbed his ears at the hugeness of the sound. It seemed to fill the world for a moment.

“Come on you mutts!” Sergeant Buck Sterling, leader of the Battle-Happy Joes of K.O. Company, bellowed, climbing out of their trench. “You wanna live forever?”

The Patriot Patrol had been assigned to team up with K.O. Company – word on the wire was the Nazis had some secret weapon stored away in the French Castle they were now storming.

The rest of K.O. Company climbed out of the trench with their commander.

They would follow Buck Sterling into hell itself if he said so.

“C’mon guys, it’ll be fun!” Champ declared, climbing out of the trench and not bothering to use the tried and true duck and cover method of gaining ground, just running straight for the French Castle.

“Easy for him to say, we ain’t all bullet proof,” muttered Americana, but she glowed up like a fireworks display and took to the skies.

The Squirrel got up out of his trench and ran, duck and cover style across the battle field. A German tank was rolling into view, so he decided to see what he could do about that. The tank got off one round – it knocked Champ down, shredding his combats, but he got back up and tore apart the machine gun nest with his bare hands.

The Squirrel grabbed the tank barrel and swung himself up onto the conning tower, digging his claws into the lid that was keeping him from the Nazis inside. With a mighty heave he ripped open the compartment door and the Nazis commander inside levelled his Luger at the Squirrel. Matt felt his feet begin to twitch him out of the bullet’s path when a whooshing sound filled his ears and a khaki-coloured blur filled his eyes and suddenly the Nazis were lying next to the tank, unconscious.

The blur turned out to be a swarthy young man with curly black hair and a twinkle in his eye.

“Sorry I’m late,” Forerunner grinned. “Had to take a top secret dispatch to London.”

Matt grinned and pulled out the timepiecer.

“You’re just in time,” he said, depressing the button.

Nothing happened.

“What the …” he said, trying it again.

“Listen pal, looks like your pocket watch is busted, and we got Ratzis to take care of.”

“But-“

Whatever Matt was going to say was lost, as there was a sudden gust of wind that tore across the battlefield, kicking up dust and dirt.

“The Wind!” Forerunner yelled, taking off in a blur. The Wind was a battlefield legend – saving lives on both sides, always where it was most desperately needed. No one on either side knew what it was, and both sides thought it had to be some kind of trick.

Forerunner was back in a flash.

“No good,” Forerunner said, panting with exertion. “He’s too fast. Just an old guy, running around, faster than I thought possible.”

A sudden thought hit Matt.

“Carmine, listen to me,” Matt said, gripping the young man by the shoulder. “You’ve got to catch the Wind… and you’ve got to do it carrying me.”

“How do you know my real name?” Carmine said, looking at him with suspicion.

“That’s not important right now… what is important is that I catch the Wind.” Matt held up the timepiecer. “See this? It’s a… top secret experimental powers analyser. Um… Division HQ wants me to use it on the Wind. Your… all our lives depend on it.”

Forerunner frowned.

“Alright,” Carmine decided.

The Squirrel climbed onto Forerunner’s back, piggyback style. Forerunner, more heavily laden now, took off, slowly at first, then gaining speed. Matt squinted his eyes against the rushing air, holding on tightly.

Forerunner and the Squirrel chased down the elusive, legendary Wind – an old man, wearing normal clothes, running across the battlefield, disarming soldiers on both sides, hauling men out of bullets’ flight paths, away from exploding shells, catching shrapnel in his bare hands so fast it was standing still in the air. Forerunner chased after him, getting a glimpse here, then spotting him halfway across the battlefield the next instant, Matt getting slightly queasy from all the changes in direction. They accidentally almost ran into each other at one point, and the Squirrel instinctively pressed the button on the timepiecer and disappeared from the battlefield.

Forerunner stopped chasing the Wind and never heard from the Squirrel again. The Wind continued to defy military logic on all sides of the conflict.

“Come on, gang!” ElectroLad cried, and the Legion of Cosmic Guardians leapt into the fray.

Transit Lass and Lizard Boy made short work of the guards to the Temple of the Hive Mind of Neptune, while Glow Girl blinded the sensor system.

Matt had spent a few days in this superfuture, and had to admit he was enjoying himself. The Legion of Cosmic Guardians was a loosely-knit association of heroes from across the Galaxy, and he had joined as Squirrel Boy (despite their ages they were all This Boy or That Lass or Something Lad or Whatever Girl… those beings without gender were Thingamajig Kid.) and was having a ball – they took out cosmic threats and space pirates and other fun stuff, and the super science of this era – which Matt had determined was sometime around the fortieth century, he wasn’t quite sure – meant that whatever damage was done to them, whatever injuries they sustained, were rapidly, almost instantaneously, healed. So they were quite safe in being foolishly brave – only complete disintegration wasn’t reparable, and the use of disintegrators was strictly controlled.

Essentially, the Legion of Cosmic Guardians did what they did for fun. Matt enjoyed that sentiment… and had enjoyed himself the past couple of days, adventuring with Transit Lass and Lizard Boy. They had met up with Glowing Girl and ElectroLad only this morning, when Cerebral Boy had transmitted the co-ordinates of the Temple to them all. Matt recognized Curt right away, but wanted to see the Temple shut down before he used the timepiecer.

The Legionnaires made short work of the Templars, freeing their slaves and saving the day once more for truth, freedom, and the United Systems way. Matt said his goodbyes and pressed the timepiecer, disappearing from the future.

The knights rode, three abreast, silver armour shining in the early dawn light, their squires behind them. A beast of legend inhabited these woods, and Merlin had commanded them to try and contact the ancient being. The master mage had not given them any word as to what the beast was, only saying that they would know it when they saw it.

“I can’t believe I’m a squire,” Matt muttered to himself, rocking back and forth on his donkey, trying to hold aloft the standard of the knight before him, Sir Stalwart or something. He’d only been here a week, and if it hadn’t been for Merlin he would have been roasted as a demon of some sort. The smell of the Middle Ages was overwhelming – no one bathed, and chamber pots were emptied outside windows all the time, splashing passers by. It was, Matt decided, gross.

“Hold!” Sir Simon the Stalwart cried, raising his hand. “Methinks I doth detect some ancient sorceries in the air!”

“Truly?” Sir Samuel the Stout-hearted said, tossing aside the chicken leg he had been nibbling upon and drawing his sword. “How dost thou knowest this, brother?”

“Our esteemed brother of the sword has a nose for such things,” Sir Frederic the Fearless explained. “And surely we may dispense with thees and thous beyond the walls of the Royal Court?”

“Proper etiquette is the province of every true knight,” Sir Simon said primly.

Whoooo goooooooesssss?, the wind whispered in the trees.

The three knights fought to keep their stallions under control, while at the same time drawing their swords.

“Ancient one!” Sir Simon cried to the trees. “We bring word from Merlin, Master of Mages!”

Sssssspeak… the wind whispered. It seemed to be coming from one of the huge, ancient trees in the clearing just ahead.

The knights and their squires urged their fearful mounts forward into the clearing. The branches of the trees swayed in an unfelt wind. The largest of the trees seemed to be filled with an aura of… time… of long ages past, when humanity cowered in caves, and forests were places of fear and darkness.

Matt swallowed hard. Fear like this he hadn’t felt before. This was the weight of ages pressing down on them. The horses bucked and the donkey were screaming. The other two squires fled before the presence… the knights raised their swords instinctively, eyes wide with battle-honed attention. Matt had been tossed off his donkey but stayed where he was.

Then he saw it – he was the first to see a face form in the trunk of the largest tree. A face than was almost human, but not very human at all. A face like Ironwood’s.

The three knights turned as one and saw the face. They dismounted and kneeled before the ancient being. Matt pulled out the timepiecer and disappeared.

Across the vast wasteland of the Big Empty, a lone rider made her way. Her two-legged raptor stretching its long lizard legs to race across the hot sands, double nictating eyelids keeping the swirling dust from its eyes. The rider pulled her mount to a halt, reaching into her pack for her water ration. She dismounted and poured some into her mount’s mouth, which it gulped down with a chirrup of thanks.

Jewel One sipped from the metal canteen herself. The water was warm and stale but still liquid, and welcome. She swallowed, washing dust out of her mouth. The scarf she wore across her face kept out most of the dust, but not all. She looked through the slit of her sunglare mask and examined the bleak horizon for signs of her quarry.

There. A thin cloud of dust. Skeezers on the prowl.

She popped an anti-radiation pill. The mutant swam would be practically glowing with the poison energy. Her mount was safe, having been born to travel the vast wasteland of the Big Empty, but she’s been vat grown in the relative safety of the MegaShelter One, the first of a new breed of humans to be genetically engineered for the harshness of surface life. But her makers hadn’t known about skeezers… hadn’t known that some remnants of humanity had survived the nuclear firestorms, and had devolved into the mutant swarms that scratched out a meagre existence on the surface.

Jewel One mounted her raptor once more, and raced toward the skeezers. She skirted the edge of one of the old ruined cities and neared her quarry. They were dancing around some sort of prize… a human dressed in grey rags. The man was gasping for air in the hot dust-filled wind, no scarf or sunglare mask to protect him.

Jewel One jumped off her mount – it would fight better unencumbered by her weight – and drew her laser sword, lighting it instantly. She had slashed two of the hideously mutated skeezers before they knew she was upon them, and her raptor’s sickle-clawed toes had torn two others apart.

The skeezers were fast and furious in numbers but when obviously outmatched, and once half their fighting force was dispatched with hardly a wound inflicted on the whirling death maiden, they were cowards at heart, and ran for the safety of the ruined city.

Jewel One untied the gasping man, who pulled a small round device from inside his rags and disappeared.

“Holy socks!” the Boy Genius cried. “You mean to tell me you’re from the future?”

Squirrel-Man looked down at the eight year old Reed Sterling. Full head of fiery red head, freckles, eager look of anticipation and excitement on his face, keenly sharp intellect shining out of his eyes.

“That’s right, Reed,” Squirrel-Man said. “I shouldn’t have told you anything, but seeing as we’re both captives of those Commie Spy Smugglers, well…”

“No, it’s okay! I can handle it!” Reed grinned eagerly. “Holy socks… can I see that thing again?”

Squirrel-Man held out the timepiecer. It hadn’t worked on eight-year old Reed. That meant the real Reed was still here in 1955 somewhere.

Reed opened the timepiecer. Eight of the Nine jewels were glowing slightly. In the past few months, Matt had figured out that each jewel represented one of the nine lost Sterling Squad members. The last one – set where twelve o’clock would have been on a normal watch, was still a dull white colour.

“So this device slices of a fraction of time of an individual, and those fractions of time will be used to realign the fractured time from whence you’ve arrived?” the eight year old said. “Fascinating… it’s alien technology, isn’t it? I mean, alien to this dimension… Holy socks. I never imagined anything like this was possible. I wonder…?”

“Ah, listen Reed, I think I’ve done a little too much interfering with the timeline for today,” Squirrel-Man said, taking the timepiecer back from the pensive eight year old. Little Reed nodded.

“Well, we should get out of here as soon as possible,” Reed said, filing away his thoughts for later perusal. He walked up to the doorframe and examined it.

Matt had been unconscious when he’d been brought into the small room with the dirt floor. Reed had been bound hand and foot by ropes, which Squirrel-Man, once awake, had sliced apart, freeing the Boy Genius. He’d tried the timepiecer right away but, like with Carmine, it hadn’t worked.

Reed suddenly laughed. He pointed to the doorframe.

“Those dopes!” he laughed. “They put us in a room with the door hinges on the inside!”

Squirrel-Man looked at the Boy Genius.

“And…?” Matt asked, not understanding.

“And, that means we can take the door off the hinges,” Reed answered, patiently.

“Oh yeah?” Matt wondered.

“Yes, trust me,” Reed smiled. “Come over here and let me see those claws of yours again.”

Matt hot squeezed the claws out of his fingers with practised ease.

“Wow…” Reed said wonderingly, examining the claws with keen interest. “I’ll bet their a psychokinetic manifestation of your subconscious squirrel-related fixation. I mean, it’s impossible for two inch claws to simply pop out of three quarter inch fingertips. Keeners!”

Matt looked at his own claws.

“Yeah, I had been wondering about that,” he said pensively.

“Anyhow!” eight year old Reed directed. “Use your claws to pull the hinge pin out of the hinge. Then we’ll be able to take the door off the door frame!”

Matt followed the Boy Genius’ directions and soon the door was out of its frame and the pair were freed.

Squirrel-Man and Reed the Boy Genius snuck down the dirt-floored corridor, cautious against any sound. Lanterns lit at intersections offered some little illumination but they were occasionally forced to rely on following the walls in the dark, trailing their hands along the dirt walls.

“I think we’re in a mine,” Reed whispered. “I was blindfolded when Old Man McGee brought me in here. Who would have thought that the old cemetery caretaker was a Communist, helping smuggle other communists into and out of the country?”

“Yeah…” Matt answered slowly. Something about what Reed had just said sounded familiar. Something about Communist smugglers… he was sure he’d read something about it somewhere. It wasn’t a memory flash, it was sometime… more recent. Of course, recent was relative, hurling through space and time as he’d been the last few months, back and forward in time, encountering dinosaurs and other costumed crimefighters and aliens…

“Aliens!” he suddenly cried, then clapped a hand over his mouth to silence himself. Reed looked at him with huge eyes.

“What about them?” the Boy Genius asked shrewdly.

“Aliens… I read about this,” Squirrel-Man answered. “On your Lobby Wall.”

“My Lobby Wall?” Reed asked.

“Never mind, I said too much,” Squirrel-Man answered. He glanced over his shoulder nervously, hearing noise coming from behind them. “Come on! We’ve got to find an elevator or a vertical shaft or something… what we want is on the lower levels.”

“How do you know?” Reed asked.

“Look, trust me,” Matt answered. He rounded a corner and found the mine elevator he had been looking for.

“Come on, Reed,” Squirrel-Man said, opening the gate on the mine elevator.

The pair descended into the depths of the mine, dropping down several levels.

“The air temperature and humidity index are rising significantly,” the Boy Genius noted, sweat coating his face. Matt had noticed it as well, dark spots staining his armpits and chest. At least his costume only had a half-mask in this timezone, so he could breathe a little easier than in the full face mask he normally wore.

Finally the elevator reached the bottom level. The heat and humidity here were significantly higher, more like a steamy rainforest than the bottom of a mine. There was an odd reddish hue to the light as well. The squirrel from the future and the Boy Genius made their way cautiously down corridor after corridor, searching for some sign of life. Finally then came across some odd vines growing along the walls of the mine. Purple in colour and slightly slimy to the touch, Reed correctly guessed they were not of Earth origin.

“Holy socks!” Reed exclaimed. “The Commies are smuggling aliens into the country!”

“Yeah…” Matt admitted. That was what the article on the Sterling Squad’s wall had told him at least. “You’re going to foil their scheme.”

“Keeners!”

The pair cautiously crept around a corner and into what seemed to be some sort of huge chamber, filled with alien technology. Men in suits and fedoras were attending to a huge machine, occasionally directed by beings that looked like nothing more than man-sized red skinned frogs, walking upright on their two hind legs.

As Squirrel-Man and the Boy genius watched in horrified awe, one of the frog-men aliens threw a lever on one of the machines and a pod-like panel opened high above. Within the pod was a man, dressed in navy and silver, with greying red hair, tentacles attached to his temples with odd sucker-like appendages.

“Reed!” Matt whispered.

“Holy socks, is that me?” the eight-year old Reed gazed at his future self, held captive in the pod of the alien Communist smugglers machine. “They’re using my brain power to run their crazy machines! We’ve got to stop them and rescue me!”

“Yeah, well, hang on a sec…” Matt pulled out the timepiecer and pressed the button. Once again, nothing happened. He looked at the pocket-watch shaped device and gave it a shake. “I don’t get it. He’s right there! C’mon you hunk of transdimensional junk!” He pressed the button a few more times, with never any effect.

“Maybe if you were closer,” Reed whispered to his companion.

“Maybe…” Squirrel-Man wondered. “Look, we’ve got to stop these aliens. Or rather, you have to. That’s how the timeline goes. You stop them by-“

“Don’t worry, I’ve already got it figured out,” Reed the Boy Genius said. “You just worry about freeing me and getting out of here.”

Matt looked sceptical but then he remembered who he was dealing with – the Boy Genius. He smiled at eight year old Reed and said, “I’ll see you in about fifty years.”

The pair shook hands and went separate ways. Matt snuck around some of the alien machinery and managed to be undiscovered, but once eventually he came to a spot where he’d have to cross open ground to get to the machine that held the elder Reed captive. He looked around the cavern and tried to see some spot on the wall that he could climb to and across over to Reed, but there were too many suit-wearing Commies and weird frog-aliens. He’d have to be spotted. He steeled himself and was about to run out into the open when a frog-guard carrying a staff with a light on one end suddenly appeared right in front of him and said, “RRRRDDEEET!”

Matt jumped over the frog-guard and almost got a shock from the blast that came from the alien’s staff. He leapt again and again, narrowly avoiding the blasts of electricity from the frog-guard’s staff. An alarm began to sound and men in suits and frogs with staffs began chasing Squirrel-Man around the room.

It was all the distraction Reed needed – he snuck over to the Master Control Panel and spent a few seconds figuring it out, then set it to overload. He looked at Squirrel-Man , jumping and leaping with incredible agility, and knew his companion would be alright – the frog men were clumsy and the Commies were bad shots. The Boy Genius gave his grey-clad companion a thumbs up and ran for the mine elevator, and safety on the surface.

Matt narrowly missed being caught in a crossfire of three Commie spy smugglers, landing on one and using his shoulders as a springboard to knock out two frog-guards. A frog with what looked to be some sort of ceremonial helmet appeared and began croaking out orders, but too late. Squirrel-Man jumped over the last frog-guard and wrenched open the pod holding future Reed. He grabbed the unconscious super scientist and pressed the button on the timepiecer.

Matt appeared on the floor of the Timekeeper’s Palace, wearing the same ragged costume he’d been wearing those long months ago, when he’d first arrived here. The Timekeeper took the timepiecer from Squirrelman’s tired hands.

Matt felt exhausted. He’d been looking for all the members of the Sterling Squad for so long without a rest he had almost forgotten about the Kirby Gauntlet, the Gauntlet Sinister, and everything that had brought him to this time out of time, this place beyond space.

“How…” He cleared his throat. “How long has it been?”

“Time has no meaning here, Squirrelman… and-“

“Yeah, yeah, I know, and all the meaning in the world. How long, Mister Mysterioso?”

“Almost a year from your point of view.”

“Jesus.”

“And now, with these soul gems, I can return the lost Sterling Squad to their place in the timeline. And repair the damage caused when the Kirby Gauntlet and the Gauntlet Sinister touched.”

“And send me back, right?”

“Of course… repeat after me: There’s no place like home.”

Matt sighed. He looked at the Guardian of All Time and said, “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

The enigmatic old young man merely smiled mysteriously. Squirrelman closed his eyes and said, “There’s no place like home, there’s no place like home…”