Detour To School

Danville, USA

6:48 AM

As usual, Milo missed the bus that morning. Not that he minded. Bus? Boring! And besides, how often are you chased by a wolverine on your average school bus?

Apparently, today was the wrong day to put aromatic spices on his roast beef sandwich. The fourth wolverine that the morning had yielded growled menacingly as it prowled closer, its yellow eyes on his lunch bag.

"Shoo, you pesky gulo luscus!" Milo yelled at it, waving a stick in what he hoped was a threatening manner. The agile carnivore leapt forward, then, dodging a swat from Milo's stick, jumped up and snatched the sweater-vested boy's lunch from his hand, before scampering away into the bushes.

Ah, that was no big deal. Melissa and Zack wouldn't mind sharing, and even if by some very possible coincidence they had lost their lunches to identical circumstances, he didn't mind waiting until dinner. In fact, one time, himself, his family, and a whole bunch of his mom's distant relations had fallen into a previously undiscovered Aztec pyramid, where they promptly turned the experience into an epic Yahtzee tournament lasting twenty-nine hours straight, surviving solely on a single half-eaten granola bar until they were rescued by the Mexican national guard. Now that was an adventure!

Speaking of adventures, this morning hadn't been uneventful itself. Upon waiting alone at the bus stop for ten minutes before remembering that the school buses were, in fact, all out of commission due to a previous disaster involving nacho cheese, he ran toward school... only to fall through a collapsing bridge, swim and climb through a log jam, and finally, be attacked by a consecutive series of wolverines bent on stealing his lunch. In fact, it might have been the same wolverine. It was hard to tell with the little guys.

Sighing contentedly as he carefully stepped over a loose manhole cover, he pulled out his waterproofed cell phone and typed a quick text message to Melissa, explaining why he was late.

He caught a blur of movement out of the corner of his eye. Glancing up in case it was an out-of-control soapbox derby car (one had been plenty for today), he saw a yellow-and-brown dog bounding happily to his side.

"Diogee, what are you doing here?" Milo grinned fondly as he reprimanded his dog, ruffling his ears.

"Ruff! Ruff!" said Diogee, as Diogee often did.

Milo chuckled, straightening back up.

"Silly boy. You can't come with me to school!" he reminded the dog, trying hard to put a stern expression on his face. "Go..."

Beeep! Beeepbeeeeeeep!

Mid-catchphrase, Milo looked up in surprise to see a familiar three-wheeled bug with a missing headlight pass another driver in a highly illegal fashion before jumping the curb and skidding sideways to a halt in front of him, where Vinnie Dakota threw open the passenger's door.

"Kid! Get in! We'll explain on the way!" Dakota exclaimed. Just as quickly, he grinned. "I've always wanted to say that. But seriously kid, get in, we'll explain on the way."

Milo stepped backward and blinked, surprised. "Dakota? Cavendish? What are you guys doing here?"

"Along the way!" Dakota exclaimed, his oddly urgent tone returning. "Hurry! We've only got... what..."

"Fourteen seconds," supplied Balthazar Cavendish sharply from the driver's seat.

"Thirteen seconds!" Dakota relayed to Milo.

Cavendish sounded annoyed by this. "I said fourteen!"

"It was thirteen by the time I said that. It's probably eleven now."

"Okay!" Milo yelped, promptly ending the discussion by jumping into the back seat.

Diogee barked anxiously, following his boy until his enormous nose was in the car by Milo's feet.

"Diogee, I really need you to go home," Milo urged, one hand on the door handle. It would be rude to push poor Diogee out of the way just to shut the door...

The dog whined.

"Seven seconds!" Cavendish said, stress evident in his tone.

"Go home, Diogee!" Milo pleaded, and Diogee reluctantly sped off.

"Hang on!" Cavendish slammed into reverse almost before Milo had time to shut the door all the way. The little car began lurching and screeching down the street, weaving a frightening path through the thankfully light traffic. They skidded around a corner, tires squealing. Car horns honked at them from every direction.

Milo peeled himself off the floor. "Okay, um, so what exactly..."

A light on the dashboard started flashing. "Hey Cavendish, they're tracking us," Dakota complained.

"What? How could they already—"

"Time travel, remember? We probably got away once, they found out who we were, and now they're back. It's annoying, really..."

Cavendish furiously popped off a panel next to the radio and tore out several wires. "They won't be finding us that way again. Blasted regulation vehicle locator..."

Dakota merely frowned. "Hey. If it weren't for that thing, you'd still be wandering around the parking lot."

"What parking lot?"

"Any parking lot."

Milo, who had just clambered back into his seat and buckled his seat belt, looked out the back window. Two sleek, ominous black cars with tinted windshields whipped into the street a block behind them. Their engines revved upon the sight of their target, and they were rapidly catching up, swerving through traffic.

Evidently, they had arrived.

Dakota poked Cavendish repeatedly, not looking away from the black cars. "Yo. Can we go faster?"

Cavendish took his eyes off the road for a moment to give his partner a dissaproving glare. This is a used vehicle, not a racecar!"

"We're using it like one now," Dakota nagged.

"LET ME CONCENTRATE!"

The three were slammed to the side as Cavendish suddenly veered into a side street. One of the black armored cars whizzed past the intersection, but the other fishtailed in behind them.

Dakota turned in his seat to face Milo, looking casual.

"So. Murphy. We should probably give you the lowdown of the showdown of the hoedown of, ya know, why we are running for our lives at the moment."

Cavendish narrowed his eyes, darting and weaving into tiny spaces between cars. "When was there a hoedown involved?"

"Eh, you weren't there for that part. But the chicken fried steak was delicious." Dakota looked away and let out a slow, somewhat dramatic breath through his teeth before glancing back at Milo. "Look, kid. Someone wants to kidnap you. Not to be overly blunt."

Milo blinked. "Okay. Um. Why?"

Instead of answering the question, Dakota glanced out the window. "Trash cans," he observed.

BUMPBUMPWHAMCRASHCLATTER!

Several trash bins rolled over the vehicle and down the back window, raining trash through the open skylight as they spun through the air.

"Wow," said Milo cheerily, brushing a banana peel off his shoulder. "That makes four times today!"

Cavendish muttered to himself, clicking on the windshield wipers to remove the large splatter of trash juice that had landed on the windshield. "If our suspicions are correct, a time-travelling criminal mastermind intends to use your condition as a weapon," he said gravely.

Milo had always thought of Murphy's Law as a kickstarter to adventure, a VIP thrill ride. But yes, he admitted, it was kind of destructive...

But really. How would someone use it as a weapon? Put him in a machine that squirted Murphy's law at people? That would be silly.

A lamp post clanged to the asphalt behind them, just in time for the other car to plow into it. Someone's window-air conditioner unit promptly crashed into the car's roof, followed by an upside-down bowl of oatmeal.

"Sorry!" came a muffled shout from a window above.

They swerved back out onto the main street... just in time to barely miss being rear-ended by the other car.

Dakota frowned, turning in his seat to look out the back window. "Aw man, they circled around."

"It's like they knew we'd be here..." Cavendish muttered dramatically, unfazed by the cacophony of car horns that blared at him as he swerved through the traffic.

Dakota shrugged. "They probably did. Time travel."

The pursuing black car lagged behind—probably because was catching the brunt of a variety of catastrophes that Murphy's Law. it was blasted with water from an exploded fire hydrant, struck by lightning from no visible storm cloud, and pelted with falling pianos, safes, and billboards.

Dakota raised his eyebrows, watching the hindered car with interest. "Oh, good, are we outrunning all the destruction? Good job, Murphy. Hit 'em with it."

The remark was blunt enough that Milo could only blink for a second.

"Um..." Milo began hesitantly, looking over his shoulder at how much their pursuers were being pummeled. Something like guilt squirmed in his stomach despite Dakota's praise. "...Thanks?"

With another turn, the other car disappeared from sight, and the passengers sighed in relief.

"Okay, kid, we're going to..." Dakota glanced outside the window at a particularly memorable café sign they were passing, and suddenly grew tense.

"...Hey, uh, kid? Stay on the right side of the vehicle."

Milo blinked, bewildered, but scooted further over like he was told. "Huh?"

"You'll thank me for it later," Dakota replied, holding tightly to the passenger handle above the door. "Anyway, we're going to take you back to the Bureau of Time Travel's headquarters to keep you safe until somebody catches our friends back there. It isn't exactly authorized, but I'm sure our boss'll make an exception."

"Or else he'll yell at us," Cavendish mused.

Dakota shrugged, grinning slightly. "Yeah. Probably both."

Milo shook his head, confused. "So... we can lose those guys and then go to the future. But... why is somebody trying to get me? Who do those cars belong to?"

Dakota glanced over at Cavendish. "What's his name again? It was like, Donald Donut, or Ronald Ring, or..."

Cavendish rolled his eyes haughtily. "Morris Torus."

The younger man snapped his fingers. "That was it. Yeah, the guy's been a real pain for the Bureau. Mr. Block's even been givin' Brick and Savannah the third degree about it, and they never get yelled at."

Milo wanted to ask who all these people were, but judging by the sounds of squealing tires behind them, this probably wasn't the best time. "Wow. What did he do?"

Dakota glanced at Milo and shrugged apologetically. "No idea. Nobody tells us that stuff. But there's rules for how you're supposed to time travel, so they can keep track of you on radar. Apparently this guy's been breaking them. Doesn't show up on any of the Bureau's radars. We never see him in the Timestream, either."

"We never see anyone in the timestream half the time."

Dakota waved this off. "Yeah, yeah. So the Bureau's thinkin' that maybe he's got a way to cloak his time vehicles somehow. The guy's apparently pretty good with—" He glanced at a monitor on the dashboard, then over at his partner. "—Cavendish, they're tracking us again."

"What? Impossible! I shut down all our broadcasting systems, they shouldn't be able to—"

Dakota, who up until this second had been eying Cavendish like he was a wriggling fish he was preparing to grab, lunged and heaved the flabbergasted British gentleman across the console.

"Dakota! What on earth—"

Milo saw it happen in slow-motion. There was a blast of blue light, a looming black shape plowed into their car from the side, and Milo barely had time to grab onto the door handle before the vehicle and its passengers were hurled mercilessly through the air, the bug rolling and landing with a crunch on its roof. Dangling from his seat belt, Milo shook off the daze of the collision to see that the entire left side of the car, including the driver's seat where Cavendish had been only seconds before, was caved in from the impact.

But luckily, due to the incredible durability that is the gift of cartoon characters, none of them seemed to be hurt: Dakota's glasses were askew, Cavendish's top hat was bent, and Milo had a faded pound sign representing a scuff on his cheek, but the trio was otherwise unscathed.

The three stared out the windshield in horror as a black car cruised up casually in front of them, the door swung open, and an ordinary-looking young man wearing a backpack smiled cheerfully down at his handiwork, taking a step toward the wreck.

"Come out with your hands up," he said calmly.

Milo gulped.

A/N:

WOOOOOOOO

*Bluebirds and Cheese go off a ski jump riding on a rocket-propelled tandem bicycle*

*while wearing sunglasses*

That's right, folks. We're back. After several millenia of procrastination, the two of us have reunited our authorly powers to accomplish the impossible: actually post chapter three!

So yeah! Expect faster updates and hopefully less confusing writing in the future! And as always, thanks for reading! A Matter of Time is still on!

-Da Cheese