The most cliched sci-fi story ever

[Interference]

Something wonderful was about to happen. Something so profound and consciousness-altering that its effects would be felt for all time and would raise two people to the level of Godhood itself. Unfortunately, it was about to happen in another story and to two other people completely, nevertheless, I thought you'd like to know before we carried on with ...

Chapter Twelve: A Fork In The Track

From the distance came the howl of a whistle and the insistent clickety-clack of an approaching engine.

"Another train," murmured Elsa.

"Sounds like it's got a head of stem up," said Seraphina.

"And there's only one track," said Fluffy.

"It's going to hit us," a fourth person might have said, but there was no need as they had all already realised it.

"It's going to hit us," said the stoker, anyway.

"It's going to hit us," said a coach load of passengers that had been forgotten about.

"It's going to-!" Yes, all right! I said there was no need to say it, didn't I???

Sheesh!

[Granfalloon]

The Stoker sat, serene, in a dark corner of the coach car, stoking his pipe, and stroking a nearby cat. Whilst Seraphina, Elsa, and Scout "The Scone", A.K.A. Nesco, panicked and began taking off their shoes, the fire that burned in the stove under the boiler that creates the steam that pushes the pistons, and makes the wheels go around, raged on. Just at the moment the two trains would impact the frozen moments stretched out into a menagerie of psychotic episodes and escapades like none that would ever occur in any eternity worth mentioning. As the train coming from the opposite direction passed through the binary train, Nesco saw through the fabric of imaginary reality into the backdrop of another reality that was more interesting than most. The apparition passed through them as if it was only an apparition train.

Thoroughgood chuckled a bit as he flipped the lid of his pocket watch closed again. "Right on time." He said.

Elsa looked at Seraphina, attempting to put on her best disimpassioned face. "Were you, uh... scared?" She asked.

Seraphina slumped her shoulders a bit, and took on a nonchalant pose. "Who me? Nah! I wasn't the least bit frightened. Not for a minute."

Elsa spurted a nervous laugh. "Yeah, I knew there was nothing to..."

She was abruptly interrupted by Stoker who stepped out of the shadows. "I've heard enough of this facetious banter. You ladies were as scared as a couple of schoolgirls on their way to a nudist sorority camp!"

The ladies jumped back, groping for each other like a couple of schoolgirls on their way to a nudist sorority camp.

"Now you've gone and frightened 'em." Thoroughgood said, shooting a scornful look at the Stoker.

Stoker gave a nod toward Fluffy, and puffed at his pipe. He turned to scout the Scone. "Tell them what you saw Nesco."

Scout "The Scone", A.K.A. Nesco turned on his heels toward the girls. "Through the maze of steaming bits, I saw another reality outside of this imaginary one we're in, and it was as if the whole of the universe was contained in a tiny spec, smaller than a grain of sand, smaller than a molecule of bacteria, smaller than a one-celled organism with a tiny piano." He pause briefly, squinted his eyes, and continued "The ghost train carried a single passenger, and it wasn't Casey Jones. It was... Serious Black. He was surrounded by a bunch of mannequins."

Just then a thunderclap sounded around them. They looked outside and saw a likeness of the binary train flying along side them backwards and upside-down.

Elsa turned to Seraphina. "Do you see what I see?"

[Interference]

"No," said Seraphina, "That would be impossible. But I think we are both perceiving exactly the same thing."

And as she said this, everything began to make sense.

The alien attack.

The time travelling.

The lost time, those weeks, months of experiences that seemed to have vanished without trace or hint or sign.

It was beginning to make sense, becoming a solid, real thing in her mind, but not in her mind so much as in her soul. And she knew. This was her life, no one else's. Her pure existence. Her ... her what? Delusion, her imagination, her --

Reality.

There was nothing to see, now. A complete absence of - of things - surrounded her. It was like someone had -- but no one had, only her.

Only her.

"Seraphina."

Seraphim.

"Angel."

I am here to make things clear ... and I bring you ...

"Fire!"

[Granfalloon]

"Precisely." Nesco said, as he walked back into the coach car armed to the teeth with every kind of high powered machine gun, grenade launcher, and flame thrower known to man or woman. "Fire... power!"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
We now interrupt this story for a special bulletin from BBC1:

Fire has broken out in the Liverpool district and all citizens are encouraged to panic. The fire seems to originate from the storm drains and other holes in the ground. Scientists are working on an explanation as I am conveying this bulletin. Until then, all residents are asked to run around in the street screaming and flailing their arms in the air. Thank you.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"You look ridiculous." Stoker said, and threw another log on the fire.

[Interference]

"Where was I?" said Seraphina, who had even less idea than the gnat (that didn't exist) that was chewing on one of the logs, coming out of her daze in a distracted tone of voice with a start and a shake of her head that allowed her hair to fall freely about her shoulders in various colours including the colour of confusion.

"I'll get that for you," said Elsa, picking up the fallen hair that hadn't yet fallen into the fire or blown away on an errant zephyr from the west, or possibly east, depending on the direction they were then facing and the magnetic field of the planet they were on, allowing for the moment the possibility that they were still on a planet, which, to be fair, is something of a leap of faith in this story, but let's face it, you've come this far on a leap of faith, there must be some left to carry you over to the next metaphorical bank of the river that represents the twisted, burbling, swooshing nature of the tale in all its glory, if glory is the word that conveys the meaning of the act, if act is how one may describe the telling of the narrative, assuming that narrative is the term I'm looking for, given that I'm looking for terms, although to be honest with you, I have no recollection of actually surrendering so why it should be necessary to come to terms at all is quite beyond me, if you'll permit this momentary lapse into the first person in order to represent the thought processes of the current interlocutor with whom you are currently, though not, perhaps, presently, interlocuting, that is if you're still with me, or one, or us as the case may, or may not (leave us not be too all-fired dogmatic about this thing, after all) be.

[Granfalloon]

Seraphina realized that she had forgotten where her purse was in all of this confusion, including the confusion flowing from her hair. She turned to Scout "The Scone" A.K.A. Nesco, and pursed her lips. She said softly, and slowly "Just call me Angel of the morning, Angel." She grabbed a purse full of napalm, and other various and sundry weapons of mass destruction, and sidled up to Nesco. "Let's go get those nasty aliens!" she shouted proudly.

As Nesco flew threw the sunroof of the train they call the Nebuckaneezer (What, no 'Bless you?') that he himself had parked ever so gently in the courtyard of Ziongwarts earlier, Seraphina grabbed onto his Dr. Martens and was lifted through the sunroof in a flash.

They landed smoothly, square in front of none other than Mr. 'Smith' a.k.a. Voldemort, and began blasting away at him. It seemed like the more they pummeled him with deadly force, the more he kept replicating himself.


Through the din of rapid fire weaponry and explosions Seraphina shouted to Nesco "Are you sure this is going to work?"
He actually heard what she said (as unbelievable as that may be to the past or present interlocutor), and replied loudly "Yes. If you look carefully his replications are getting about a centimeter smaller each time, and some of the pixels are falling out of his bytes."
She shouted back "He's a digital man?"
He replied, "A digital alien, simulated to look like a man, but a million times harder to exterminate."

Seraphina nodded, and spun around on one foot, throwing the deadly cache of napalm she had mysteriously acquired at the sprawling mass of replicated Voldemorts. The blaze was infernally bright and audaciously hot. The resulting mass of caramelized goo writhed and wiggled, screams undulating from it's smoldering heap. Nesco turned a dial on a canister that could have been anything, but was in fact a hydrogen bomb, until the readout said 0:33.
He tossed the bomb onto the pile of twisted, ash encrusted tripe, turned to Seraphina, who now had acquired her wings, and said "C'mon, we don't have much time!"