‘Who doesn’t appear to need saving from anything,’ John said.

I fell back into the sofa. We had all been standing practically face-to-face, close to yelling. I let exhaustion take me. ‘I believe him.’ I could have told them what Mia’s eyes had failed to tell her. I could have said that Demus was a future me, and if we kept to his script, if we allowed our timeline to be his, then my recovery was a done deal. I could have but I didn’t. It was too close to begging and something in me wouldn’t allow it. ‘I believe him and I’m going to try to get this chip with or without you lot. But I won’t succeed without you.’

‘Then why try?’ Simon asked.

‘Because you guys would try on my behalf if you believed it. And Mia’s one of us.’

A tapping at the window stopped John from having to answer. Elton bounced into view, jumping to be seen.

‘I’ll go let him in.’ John set off on the long trek to the front door.

‘Why didn’t he just ring the bell?’ Mia asked as John left the room.

‘John’s mother doesn’t like him in the house.’ I looked at the floor.

‘Why not?’ Mia paused. ‘Elton’s the nicest guy ever. He’s always polite. He calls my mum “ma’am”.’

‘Wrong colour.’ Simon had less of a problem saying it than I did. He never really understood how people treated each other anyway.

‘Jesus!’ Mia flopped into the sofa beside me. ‘Fuck.’

‘Fuck indeed,’ I said. ‘You can’t choose your parents, but John’s mother is always a reminder to me that I got a pretty good deal.’

We sat in silence after that, until John came back, Elton on his heels.

‘Hey all.’ Elton perched on the arm of the larger sofa. ‘Who died?’ He looked edgy. Nervous. Not like Elton.

‘It’s nothing. We’re still in shock from seeing John’s dancing.’ I made a smile. ‘Also, you missed the bit where I told them that Demus wants us to rob a computer lab.’

‘I ain’t breaking in anywhere.’ Elton shook his head. ‘No way. Mum would kill me. And then my brothers would stamp on my corpse.’

‘He says it’s to stop Mia from being a vegetable after the accident she has when he comes from,’ John said.

‘Man, these fairy stories again? Breaking and entering because of some trick with the dice? Ain’t happening. I mean like no way.’

The argument that would have followed was stopped in its tracks by another tap on the window.

‘Fuck! That’s the guy!’ John stared with the rest of us at Demus. I was as surprised as the rest of them. He’d said nothing about showing up.

For a moment all of us stood staring. All of us except Simon, who glanced from Demus to me and back again. Simon looked at the world differently. He was the sort to notice the number plate of the car hurtling toward him. The rest of us would be busy getting out of the way.

‘What’s he want?’ Elton asked.

‘We could let him in and find out,’ I suggested.

And a minute later Demus was among us, standing there in one of John’s living rooms in his trench coat, a solid and inescapable fact. Still, only Simon seemed to have seen past baldness and a quarter of a century to notice how alike Demus and I looked.

‘Turn the TV on.’ Demus took us all by surprise.

‘Why?’ John asked, but he did it anyway. The big colour TV flickered into life, one of about four in the house and twice the size of any I’d seen anywhere else.

‘BBC 2,’ Demus said. ‘Quick as you like.’

John punched the second channel button. The screen showed crowds of people standing in bright sunshine . . . some kind of sporting event. It looked chilly; they were well wrapped.

‘What’s the time?’ Demus asked.

‘You’re wearing a watch.’ Simon pointed to it.

‘Humour me.’

‘Four thirty-six.’ Elton read from his digital watch.

‘Half past.’ Mia pointed to the wall clock.

The footage panned across the crowd to the space shuttle, engines fuming gently on the launch pad. The announcer reminded us that we were watching live at T minus one minute.

‘It’s going to explode seventy-three seconds into its flight,’ Demus said. ‘I’m sorry to use the deaths of seven people in this way, but it’s important that you believe me. It’s also important that you understand that for me this has already happened. I can’t change it.’

‘T minus thirty seconds.’ The official countdown from the NASA control tower now.

‘You could be beaming this in,’ muttered Elton.

‘It will be in the evening papers, with the time.’ Demus went to turn the volume up.

We watched as the engines ignited and the shuttle shuddered on its powerful rockets, slowly ascending on a pillar of fire. I didn’t want it to explode.

The shot switched to images of Americans craning their necks as the shuttle took to the skies. Smiles and awe, flags waving, an image of the families and senior officials. Beside me Demus’s silent count became a voiced one. ‘Sixty-two, sixty-three, sixty-four.’

‘Don’t . . .’ Mia’s face was frozen in horror.

We watched without speaking, and nine seconds later the shuttle blew apart in a vast ball of fire, the two boosters spiralling away on their own trajectories.

‘You can change the channel and see the news flash hit. Or turn the radio on.’ Demus sounded as sad about what had just happened as I felt.

Elton reached the TV in two strides and turned it off, angry. ‘It’s tricks. David freaking Copperfield stuff. If that guy can levitate over the Grand Canyon, then this guy here sure as hell can mess about with the timing on—’

‘Messing about with time is exactly what I am doing, Elton.’

‘Don’t Elton me! You don’t know me!’

‘I do, though. I really do.’ Demus still looked sad, almost as if he were on the edge of tears. He stepped in close to Elton, lowering his voice. ‘I know exactly what you want to tell the others. And you should do it. A few decades from now, hardly anyone would bat an eyelid, Elton.’ Demus pressed a folded piece of paper into his hand. ‘Really. It all gets so much better.’

Elton stepped back as if stung, which wasn’t Elton at all.

‘I’m going to leave you to make your decisions,’ Demus said. ‘You’ll do that better on your own. Nick can show me out.’

And, leaving a stunned silence in our wake, we both left the room. Demus moved confidently along the corridor toward the front door while I glanced around, expecting John’s mum to appear and challenge us at any moment. We reached the door unscathed, though. Demus leaned in toward me as we stood outside on the steps.

‘They’ll talk about this as “saving Mia”.’ He shrugged. ‘Let them. But you, you need to remember this: she saves you. In the end, she saves you. You’re not rescuing a damsel in distress here. You’re returning a favour in advance. She’s special. Don’t ever let me forget that.’

And with that he went.

I got back to the living room to find that John had got hold of a radio and turned the TV back on with the sound off. BBC 1 was breaking the news with footage of the explosion while on the radio an announcer was describing the scene.

I turned the radio down and eyed Elton, who had just sat down beside John. ‘Well?’

Elton pursed his lips. He glanced down at the paper Demus had given him, then closed his hand around it. ‘I can’t argue. That man knows stuff he shouldn’t be able to know.’

‘Are we doing this thing, then?’ I asked. ‘Breaking in, going after the chip he needs?’

‘We could try, I guess.’ Elton stood again. ‘Shit. I wouldn’t have come if I’d’ve known what you were going to get me into.’ He sat down again.

We spent maybe an hour just going over how crazy it all was. Trying to talk ourselves out of believing. And failing.

At last, John asked the other question. ‘What was Demus talking about? He said you wanted to tell us something, Elton?’

‘Yeah . . .’ Elton took to his feet again, nervous once more. He manufactured a grin. ‘Sorry I was late. I know you all wanted me to come and show you how to be cool with the ladies, but it seems like Mia got that sorted already.’ He paused, still tense. Elton wasn’t ever tense. He was the opposite of tense. He took tension out of you. ‘And I know I was late for this man from the future shit that I still don’t really believe but am going to act like I do believe anyhow . . .’

‘What’s up, Elton?’ Mia looked at him curiously, like she knew something we didn’t.

‘Look. This party . . .’ He sort of tossed his hands in the air and looked at the door.

‘Just tell them,’ Mia said.

‘Well.’ He puffed out his cheeks then took a deep breath. ‘You ain’t gonna see me getting off with no girls.’

I frowned. If I was honest, I didn’t expect to see any of us getting off with a girl. Possibly John. But it wasn’t as if we knew many people there. And Elton just wasn’t bothered . . . ‘I . . . Are you . . . ?’

‘I wanted to invite you guys,’ he said. ‘It’s important to me. And besides. You really need it. But it means now I gotta share more than I was . . . ready for.’