Smoking a cheroot, Xander opened the window and inhaled the balmy Italian air. Italy was a beautiful country steeped in history and romance. The Sicily-Rome Express was on time, and as the countryside flashed by at breakneck speed, Xander closed the window and ambled towards the front of the train. He approached the dining car and bumped into himself.

 

Curiosity transformed his face as he addressed his doppelgänger. “What’s your designation?”

 

“Xander Beta,” his replica confided.

 

“And you’re here because?”

 

“The Moirai sent me to give you a hand. It’s the boy’s final rebirth and our last chance before impact. If he dies today, well, you know the rest.”

 

“Yes. Where’s Xander Alpha?”

 

Sadness momentarily clouded Beta’s face before he answered. “Pompeii. The first retrieval mission was unsuccessful.”

 

Xander nodded grimly as the train hurtled into a tunnel.

 

* * *

 

Xander Alpha looked around, briefly disorientated at his unfamiliar surroundings. Cobblestone streets led to villas and smaller buildings. He struggled to breathe in the caliginous lane — pumice-filled ash rained from the sky as Pompeians ran from the violent eruption. Leaning against a stone wall, he tried to focus, but his eyes burned from the noxious fumes. He raced along raised steps, heart pounding, in his quest for the child.

 

Alpha rounded a corner, overturning clay pots, faltering as he struggled to breathe. The earth rumbled, belching its destructive gases down on the Italian city.

 

A strangled cry for help came from a nearby dwelling. Alpha jumped in the open window and saw a young boy huddled in the corner. He scooped him up and ran. Walls imploded. The child buried his head against his rescuer’s shoulder as they merged with frantic throngs seeking refuge. Alpha tried in vain to pull the thread link around his wrist, but the crushing weight of terrified citizens impeded every effort. He stumbled and fell, and the once-glowing connection to home disintegrated.

 

People succumbed to the primal heat. Tears streamed unchecked from the frightened child’s eyes, glistening before they dried out from the growing heat on ash-streaked cheeks. Fresh ones scored new paths.

 

“Shush, shush, it’s okay.” The untruths left Alpha’s lips as he covered the boy’s body. Ash clouds enveloped them, constructing a horrible, living, yet dying tableau.

 

They perished.

 

* * *

 

“Alpha’s thread link?” Xander asked as they exited the tunnel.

 

“Inoperative? Destroyed? What is certain is that he couldn’t emit a signal for extraction. Intense heat incinerated everything. Have you seen the boy?”

 

“Robert? Yes, he’s in the next carriage.”

 

“Do you intend to take him before the collision?” Beta queried.

 

“No. We follow protocol. Robert must make it off the train. Once he does, our planet’s survival is secure, and his great-granddaughter invents the Goddard PK Redirection Emitter.”

 

Both men studied their wristbands — filaments of circuitry woven so finely that they resembled microscopic gossamer threads.

 

“Nearly time; are you ready, Beta?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“Very well. Wait at the destination point. I’ll send the boy to you. Once he’s secure, return to base.”

 

“And you?”

 

“When Robert clears the wreckage, I will return.”

 

Beta pulled his thread and stepped through the Moirai-matrical portal.

 

Xander made his way to the carriage.

 

* * *

 

Spotting a discarded newspaper, Xander picked it up and sat in a seat facing Robert. He chuckled and showed a cartoon depiction of a T-Rex to the child. The boy grinned at the pram-pushing dinosaur but said nothing.

 

Train brakes squealed. Two trains on a head-on collision course. Xander attempted to shield Robert but failed. The sudden stop sent the travelling man somersaulting when the locomotives collided. Eerie weightlessness gripped him as their carriage buckled inwards, almost in slow motion, compressing like a tin of beans. A loud noise threatening to puncture his eardrums obliterated the grinding of shredding metal and squib-like pops. Seats and passengers tumbled over. Up was down and down was up as the carriage’s roll ended. It settled overturned on the track.

 

Xander hit the ground with a thump. A stickiness made his left eye blink furiously. At his side was a shattered window. Glass fragments decorated his face, cables hung, and moans flitted to him from the carriage and outside. When he tried to move, he could not. Legs and arms were numb. A whimper on his right made him turn his head, and even though the motion sent blinding shards of pain ricocheting behind his eyelids, he needed to find the source of the cry.

 

Robert stared back at him. Tear tracks veined his pale face.

 

“Can you move, son?” The mere question caused Xander to cough blood-frothy bubbles.

 

The boy wriggled, moving closer. “Yes, I think so, but there’s nowhere for me to go.”

 

“The shattered window. That’s your way out.”

 

“I’m afraid,” Robert murmured.

 

“Listen to me. Think of it as an adventure. Climb on me to reach the window.”

 

“I can’t.” A small sob.

 

Xander smelled burning plastic and felt the heat rising in the carriage. Crackling flames slithered across the floor and roof, warning him they were running out of time.

 

“How about we play a game, then?”

 

“A game?” Robert perked up.

 

“Let’s see how long it takes you to run away from the train until there’s no smoke, run until you can breathe, run until you can get help. Whaddya say?”

 

“All I have to do is run.”

 

“Yes, now my arm’s injured, so you must take my watch off my other one. Push the button on the side until you get to a stopwatch.” Blood speckled Xander’s chin. Searing heat melted the soles of his shoes.

 

Robert fiddled with the watch. “Got it.”

 

“My guess is four and a half minutes.”

 

“Quicker, I’d say.”

 

Xander grinned weakly. “Okay then. Ready, steady, go.”

 

“What about you?”

 

“Don’t worry about me. I’ll get out. Now go.”

 

Xander felt nothing as Robert clambered over him to the window, and he watched as the child squirmed through the destroyed pane and was gone.

Moments later, hungry flames engulfed the spot. Xander was no longer there.