From TamsinP: These Aren't The Hairy Bikers I Am Looking For...(20 points)

Extracts from the journal of TamsinP, Time Traveler, Society Girl and Adventuress

9th March, 1660ish, Paris

Following my escape from the ensuing brawl in the market place, I take rooms in a respectable part of the city. You can tell it is respectable because there is a separate room for performing malodorous bodily functions. I spend  a day or two to see the sights of the old city, although my limited schoolgirl French does leave me at some disadvantage.

However, I tire of Paris and awake feeling the need of a hearty breakfast of bacon and eggs, ideally cooked on a campfire. Retrieving my device, I try to remember where and when I encountered those lovely ursine bikers. Ensuring that I am unobserved, I set the device and open the rift. 

As I step through, I can tell something is wrong. The site looks the same, but there are no signs of my hairy biker friends, the air smells wrong and the sky has an unnatural tinge. Checking my device, I see that in my haste I have entered the wrong year - it is 2120 instead of 2021!

I hear a scuttling sound from beyond the scrub.

"Wheeee, doggie!" I hear a young voice cry out "It's a girly, Paw!"

"Fresh meat for dinner, boys!" an older voice calls out from a little further away.

Ducking behind a rock to hide, I find a bag containing old newspapers and a journal. From my hiding place I look out and see three very strange men and an even stranger boy approaching. Not wanting to be invited for dinner, I grab the bag and hit "Home" on my device. As the rift opens, I roll through and find myself in my lounge at home, just as I left it.

Sitting down with a coffee (fortified with a generous slug of whisky) I peruse the documents from the bag. From what I can make out, it all began in this very year, 2020. Mass hysteria over Covid-19 led to panic buying around the world as people stockpiled various things. Shortages in the shops led to rioting and calls for politicians to do something, anything. Mass demonstrations overtook major cities, with the crowds chanting:

"What do we want?"
"Toilet roll, handwash and dried pasta!"
"When do we want it?"
"Yesterday!"

Faced with mounting civil unrest, politicians around the world took stock. Most were sensible and realised that it would all blow over soon - shipments of toilet roll were continuing to arrive, factories in their countries were still producing handwash and dried pasta and trusted that the panic and idiocy would soon subside.

Others, however, who were more volatile (and dumb) took the "do something, anything" calls as giving them carte blanche to demonstrate their own panic, fear and idiocy. 

"I say we take off and nuke the planet from orbit! said one.

"That's not possible, Mr President. We don't have the spacecraft to do that." an unpanicked aide replied.

"OK, let's just nuke the planet then!" retorted the President.

And so, panic over a virus had resulted in a nuclear apocalypse in 2021. One country launched its missiles, other countries responded. The world was devastated.

In the aftermath, the human population had been almost extinguished. Scattered groups of survivors lived on in pockets. Most newborns showed signs of mutation.

Depressed by this prospect, I put down the papers and hope fervently that this was all from an alternate dimension and won't come to pass in this one.

These figures are 28mm from Copplestone Castings. At 5 points each, that will give me 20 points for this submission.


From DaveD - Nice job Tamsin..very colourful! always nice see Copplestones well done.