Robin's Fourth Girlfriend, Chapter One

Joe’s crimson-coloured space-racer landed before him, and out climbed two Mini-Flashes with beige tunics on.

“I am in your debt, my friends,” Joe greeted them.

The boy was Mini-Flash Robin from a beginner’s class he taught, while the girl must be new, as Joe didn’t know her at all. Robin at once handed over the large envelope he carried.

“You must wonder that this errand was necessary,” Joe went on, after thanking them both and pocketing the package inside his leather jacket. “I scarcely know where to begin in explaining to you how our mission in this place has changed, but one consequence has been that I require a modus of personal conveyance. On which note, you are our guests. I will not ask you to return to Nottingham via galactic public transport, after having made such a journey on my behalf. Come.”

So saying he invited the pair to follow him up an iron exterior stairwell. Mini-Flash Robin’s female companion, with ribbons in her curls, seemed to Joe a little unforthcoming. In fact she’d said nothing at all thus far, though this might have been because she was having doubts about the sleeping arrangements in a single shabby room.

There was a surprise in store for her if so. Joe opened the door to one of the apartments, and his neophytes gawped on nothing but golden light.

With assurances Joe showed them into it, then followed, closing the door behind him.

Presently Mini-Flash Robin and Presh were alone in the sunny garden at Joe’s old Boston home.

“Can’t quite make it out,” Robin declared. “Chap misses all sorts of things when he stays in The Flash Club! Bet you’re glad you came over now,” he added to Presh with a grin.

She didn’t answer at first. If it had only been shyness when they arrived, the explanation they’d received as to where they were had plunged Presh into a far deeper species of silence. Possibly she’d understood the strange physics better than Robin had. At last, in a voice which was almost a whisper, she declared:

“I didn’t think it would be so beautiful.”

This seemed to Robin a funny thing to say, since they’d not expected to be here at all.

“So what are we waiting for?” continued Presh, and now there was an intentness about her. “Joe said we could go explore. Don’t you want to see what it’s like?”

Robin couldn’t deny there was totes some temptation in that. He took her outstretched hand, and together they set off over the lawn for the gate that led out of the garden.

It was a bright morning. Presh and Robin headed for the heart of the port town, marvelling all the while at architecture which seemed to them irreducibly alien. They passed a dilapidated windmill, and beheld old warehouses bulking on the riverbank amid labyrinths of metal rails and concrete. Both the Mini-Flashes lived in Nottingham, so were not utter strangers to the Earthen landscape, but their present surroundings were mostly of a kind which had gone out when that city was created for the first time.

“Can’t believe I didn’t even think much of Joe,” confided Presh, her voice still hushed.

“Chap does find old Neetra’s the one with the real Mini-Flash touch,” Robin agreed at once. Presh rolled her eyes, and continued:

“But all along, he had such a place in mind. This is worth fighting for, Robin,” she added seriously. “It’s completely changed the way I view him.”

“I’m not totes sure he’s asking us to fight for it,” Robin pointed out.

They came to a newsagents and went inside. A peculiar duo they would have looked, had any human bystanders of that era existed there to see them. Boy and girl in identical short-skirted tunics surveyed racks on which were folded the Times and the Telegraph, plus shelves of sweets, soft drinks in a chilled cabinet, and over by the counter a colourful array of comics.

“This must be where Joe hit on the idea,” commented Robin knowledgeably. “The free gifts, for example. That’s Mini-Flash Juniper’s job on ours.”

Presh rolled her eyes again.

“Not even sure we’ll get to keep these when we go back to Nottingham, but we can totes read them this afternoon at least,” Robin went on, picking out one with an especially desirable free gift taped to the cover and taking it to the till. His question sat alongside other good ones, such as what exactly the shopkeeper was and how it came about that Robin had Earth-money to hand. When you were enmeshed with someone else’s subconscious, such details became a little foggy but usually sorted themselves out on their own.

Presh followed Robin’s lead. Once she’d paid, a coupon fell from the pages of her comic and landed on the carpet-tiled floor.

“Ooh!” she exclaimed, kneeling to pick it up. “Free can of drink, any flavour!”

Opening the cool-cabinet Presh selected appleade and redeemed her voucher, then as soon as she and Robin were outside again, cracked the ringpull and swigged deep.

“Getting my smell on,” she confided, eyes sparkling.

The Mini-Flashes wandered together to the town centre, taking it in turns to sip. There was still a little appleade left when they arrived, so they sat on a bench by the shops to finish it.

Robin handed the can to Presh, since the last drops were rightfully hers, then laid his comic cover-upwards on his lap and proceeded to gaze at it wide-mouthed and happy. Presh had worked with him at the Town Hall for a while now, and knew that for all his talk about this afternoon it would probably be days before he even got around to turning the first page.

“Oh, Juniper,” she breathed to him, then giggled at his blush.

“Mad to think doing that somehow brings you closer to her,” Presh pressed on. “You ought to buy some smelly cheese crackers instead. She reminds me of them.”

Robin could only laugh, astonished.

“Seriously,” declared Presh. “When I came to Nottingham I had such expectations about finally getting to meet the famous trio. As far as one of them’s concerned, I’ve yet to see how the Special Program’s anything special. You know she’s the one who let us down at Limb Four? Shows you where the weak link is in that particular chain.”

“Not so sure about the last bit,” Robin said staunchly, “but I did happen to know. Comes as rather a surprise that you do, though.”

For after all, Neetra on Flaban had told him to keep it to himself, and she’d certainly spoken as if those who’d been there were doing the same.

“Oh, it’s widely known,” said Presh at once. “You know how Mini-Flashes talk.”

She crunched the can and threw it into a nearby bin.

“What shall we do next?”

The change of subject was abrupt, but not unwelcome to Robin. “We could totes go and look at the toys,” he suggested. “I want to tell Wodding all about what they were like here!”

“These?” asked Presh. The back-cover of her comic bore a photographic advertisement.

Robin wanted to laugh again, though he stopped himself in time. “Chap can’t make you out sometimes,” said he. “Anyone would think you’d never had any toys of your own!”

One action figure above all seemed to be holding Presh’s attention, that of a burly bald man garbed entirely in black but for a purple blazer. Robin guessed he wasn’t one of the good guys. Placing her fingers softly on his picture, Presh said: “I want to understand everything about this place, Robin. And I think he’s the key.”

END OF CHAPTER ONE