Two glowing digits hung, in perfect alignment, suspended in the dark pitch that filled their existence, a one, long and slender, bisected into points at the middle, and a six, made up from six glowing sticks, much like the ones that made up the one, identical in height. The 1 was fairly young, but the six had just been made, new into the world, but by a cruel twist of fate just as it gained self-awareness in the way all numbers do, it stopped existing, replaced by a five, fresh and blinking into the world. The one, less concerned with himself (1) but with its surroundings looked out on a scene of destruction.

Josh blind fired stun shots into the hall, a range of stunning projectiles, from darts to plasma, all of them bouncing harmlessly off the surroundings,
14
A spanner flew, spinning end over end and hit josh square in the face, knocking him to the floor and stopping the barrage,
13
The one known simply and sinisterly as Jez spun a cable with a lump of circuitry at each end like a nun-chukka, spinning through the air, lashing out at his foe, flickering blows lighting his face with flickering light from the sparks, a single bead of sweat hit the floor,
12
A fire, started by Josh’s blind fire caught and the auto-sensors began to douse it in foam, and Jez was covered in the white bubbly froth,
11
Momentarily distracted one of his rabid enemies dived on his back and head butted him into unconsciousness.
10(2)
Two of his travelling companions down Jez rolled toward the timer, the lights of its numbers illuminating a dark corner, he ran desperately,
9
Someone stepped from the shadows in front of him, and he only had time to swear before he was knocked back by the force of the punch.
8
The intercom crackles and the computer’s voice, metallic and grating, yet painfully polite ‘Er... Guys?”
7
A hand grabbed out and caught Matt around the ankles, pulling him down to the floor, one of his foes, though beaten had pulled himself back up, and was bringing him down.
6
Matt swore and kicked around at the origin of the hand, flecks of mud flying from his boots, the computer still shouting ‘The count-down! Stop it....’
5
‘... before it’s too late....’ Matt’s foot connected and the hand shot away to nurse whatever wound he had inflicted, scrambling to his feet, the last of the travellers able to do anything he stumbled, toward the corner with the timer,
4
‘Please! Stop it!’ Matt stood with a triumphant smile on his face and ran his hand gently over the box, staring as the number changed again
3
Mesmerised by its subtle beauty, ‘You don’t understand! Turn it off!’
2
‘It’s going to go off! Please! Stop....’ Matt glanced over his shoulder to see two of his enemies had recovered and another was pulling himself up, nursing what looked like a well-kicked shoulder, he knew they were too late now,
1
Even now, here, victory was his.... Always his....
bing
‘It’s not a microwave!’ Matt and his assailants stopped dead.
“What?”
‘I tried to stop you four! That’s not a microwave, that was the matter dispersion machine that Master Jeremy made, to scatter things to their component atoms and scatter them across space and time!’
“THEN WHY DOES IT LOOK LIKE A ZEKKING MICROWAVE?!?”
“I had to make it from something!”
“Right, fine, computer, the last slice of pizza in this quadrant is now?”
‘in pieces, in 1324 and 7382, both during wars, sir.’
“STEVE!”
“What? It looks like a microwave! It has microwave written on it!”
“Yeah, right next to ‘not’ and ‘a’!”
“I won that pizza fair and square.” Matt winged. Now we’ll have to actually go buy more! Thanks Steve.” 


(1)One is a male, this is because all odd numbers are men and evens are women, as everyone found out to their disgust in the 39^th century

(2) the one by this time had worked out the sequence numbers took and had therefore realized this was its last moment, as the others had only lasted a very short time. He had conflicting emotions about this, as he knew it was his time, he was born to flick down to zero, but no-one wants to die, it was a difficult time for him, but mercifully short.

---

the travellers