13. Denial

"And now it is time to run!" The old man, dressed in westerly garb found in the early 1800's yelped, looking back at his enemies. "Right now."

His companion nodded, looking warily at his coat. "Is there something wrong with your clothes?"

"What?" He replied, confused. "What are you going on about?"

"It's so long," she gestured impatiently to his attire. "You're most definitely not female, so why the long coat? What happened to the short jackets that you men wear?"

"I did forget," he admitted wryly to himself. "This is the year 345calc*2. Gender determination are ridiculous again."

"There you go mumbling about random topics," she rolled her eyes in exasperation. "Will you ever learn?"

He looked at his companion fondly. "No, Gwen, I shall never learn. I've told you - I'm a time traveller. Not used to following rules or anything like that. I'm from - well not from - but I've progressed through the year 2012."

"The year that the world was supposed to end," Gwen nodded wisely. "We learned about that."

He raised an eyebrow, quizzically. "May I just ask what you're talking about? There've been plenty of the 'the end of the world' dates and those weren't remembered."

"Other than 666," she recited, nodding her head anxiously. "The year of the devil."

"Forget that," he spluttered. "Tell me about 2012."

"Don't you know?" She smirked slyly up at him. "You are a time traveller, aren't you?"

He locked eyes with her, his cold pupils touching upon her cheeky ones. "I obviously haven't gotten there yet. Now will you please tell me what happened?"

She started reciting again, perhaps recalling from a textbook that she had used as a child. "2012. The year the world ended. Precisely on the twelfth of the twelfth, for some reason during Australian time."

He stared at her, his eyes flashing with emotions, "Australian time? That's ridiculous. They're one of the areas that time goes that much faster. Australia is ahead of almost everyone on the time circuit. Why kill everyone so early?"
She shrugged, unable to tell him the information he needed to know. "They had no idea that it would happen, you see. Some people tried to escape it by going to Mexico - but whoever was dropping people dead didn't spare them either. It was as if it were from the inside."

"So it wasn't a freak of nature," he mused. "I knew that though; they were all myths. Someone must've heard rumours and decided to proceed with them. Aliens, though - that much is obvious. They didn't use the Greenwich time; which a human would have done. Oh no, they went ahead and just did it where it already was the date. Not to forget that the history books are adding their own personal text - wait; what? - yes, I'm right. Personal text - 'As if it were from the inside.' Someone's trying to tell me something. Now for the sake of humankind, I need to figure it out. They must've found a way to get into the Earth, oh and Gwen?"

"Yes?" She replied sweetly, a smug smile gracing her cunning face.

"You can drop the act. I know that you are just a hologram." He instructed her. "I mean, what sort of fool do you take me for? The whole lot of you are holograms, set to fool me; the smartest man alive. What a stupid thing to try."

"We had to," she shrugged. "That's what our orders were."

"Orders?" He demanded, kneeling down to scrutinise the scrawny girl who stood awkwardly in front of him. "From who?"

She simpered then. "Wouldn't you just like to find out? Now, find out why the humans died out so early. You know that they weren't supposed to. Someone interfered. Someone from the future."

"And how would you know that?" He gazed upon her, impressed by the software that was being used to manipulate these people. If it weren't for his keen sense of smell, he wouldn't have even realised.

Gwen's eyes flashed. "We know everything. We set balance to the world. We don't interfere but we send other people out to save others. Now decipher the code and run. Run for your life. The program has realised you have understood our functions and it will not spare your life. But you must save the humans. Run."

"But what about our… - enemies?" He looked around in confusion.

"Stimulation to get your brain thinking, old chap." Was the stubborn reply. "How else were you supposed to realise that the humans had disappeared in your little escapades?"

He nodded thoughtfully, realising that he hadn't even thought about his 'enemies' during the time that he had been speaking to Gwen. Must have been some sort of perception filter. "Alright then. I'm off."

"Fast." The program warned him. "It's time to go."

He ran swiftly to his machine, looking back at the swirling fog that pursued him menacingly from where Gwen had stood. "Time to figure out who has interfered and why."

I'll get to reading all of yours soon, pinky promise! I'm sorry; I've been so busy procrastinating and studying! I love you a lot and I hope you somewhat like this one as I do understand how crappy my writing can be, but thank goodness for the fact that I'm literate.

Allons - y! (Hmm... how appropriate)