Alvin dropped the bottle and Aintree quickly grabbed it before it hit the floor. He let out a breath of relief, glad his new Reeboks hadn't been splashed with the shit–piss mixture. Where did his life go wrong? It seemed like only a couple hours ago his biggest worry had been fiending for a cigarette—oh, and that big-ass star. Now he was running with the wrong crowd and getting blasted on pee and poo.

And what was with all that killing earlier? Sure, Aintree was an assassin, but he still had morals.

Handycam in hand, Alvin followed Aintree from the bathroom and down a long flight of stairs, around the blind corner at the bottom and...

"Fuck!" Alvin cursed, though that much should be blatantly obvious. "Aintree! Aintree! Where the fuck did you go?"

He really should not have been able to lose the guy. He had only been a matter of feet behind him and besides, there was nowhere for him to go, though clearly he had gone somewhere, but there was no door or window. There was not even a light, apart from the Handycam's torch.

There was an almighty roar behind him, and he turned to see some kind of box-headed monster shambling towards him. Alvin didn't think—he just acted. Quickly reaching down to the knife he kept secured to his leg, he tugged it free and whipped it at the monster's chest.

"Ow! Fuck!" The monster removed the box from its head and—

"Aintree!" Alvin screamed. "You scared the jenkem right outta my system, asshole!"

Looking down at the red spot growing around the blade embedded in his chest, Aintree said, "Did you get it on film, bud?"

Alvin was already upstairs, finding the bottle for another huff.

Aintree tugged the knife out and jammed a wadded-up ball of cardboard into the wound. He'd need a real, cheap doctor to patch that up properly. When Alvin came back down, looking spaced-out with a jenkem moustache, Aintree told him what the first episode of their reality show would be.

"Aw, hellz yeah, bruv," Alvin said, strapping on his Handycam. "You gonna waste some foo's as we make our way through these dangerous streets?"

Aintree rolled his eyes. "Maybe."

They found the apartment's exit and stepped out into a dark, dingy world. A drug dealer stood at the corner.

Aintree asked him: "Need doctor. Where find?" He was getting chest pains now.

The dealer told them where and even sold Aintree some heroin at a premium.

Now Alvin and Aintree looked like they were sleepwalking to their destination.

"Do we... even need to... to... to... go to the doctor..." Aintree asked, a lazy grin on his face.

Alvin didn't respond, as he was too busy drooling and staring into his HandyCam.

A car slowed as it neared them, idled when it reached them. The window opened.

"Are you Alvin Qwin?" the driver asked.

"Uh-huh."

A gun appeared and shot Alvin in the head.

The car sped off, burning rubber. The muffler let out a bang.

Aintree rushed to Alvin's side. "Qwin! Wake up, bud!" He shook the kid, tried to fit the pieces of his skull back into place, even gave him mouth to mouth. Nothing worked. "QWIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIN!!"

Standing, panting, wondering what was more important: seeking medical attention for the hole in his chest, or going after Alvin's killer. Why did the kid have to die?

Aintree pulled out his cell phone and made the call to Boss Hogg. If anyone would have answers, it would be Boss Hogg. "Piglet. This is Aintree."

"Goddamnit, Aintree, how many murders do I have to cover up for you now?" Boss Hogg's voice sounded like it needed more diesel fuel.

"None. I need you to help me commit one."

"No."

The line went dead.

Aintree muttered some choice made-up words to himself and rolled the body to the side of the road. The urge for another smoke tugged at his insides and intertwined with his sadness at losing yet another friend in a way that he almost interpreted as metaphorical; perhaps, he thought, just perhaps, all of this was some kind of lesson that he'd been submitted to simply to wean himself off cigarettes.

He glanced down at Alvin's body. A half-used AlienHead brand cigarette lay crippled beside it. He shrugged and lit it.

That was when his cell phone dinged. It was a text from Boss Hogg. "Meet me at the Enchanted Rainbow Forest seven years ago ASAP. And bring $50,000."

Aintree fired off a reply: "oink oink piglet." This was an old code for acceptance.

50k and seven years ago, eh? Aintree thought he could manage that. And if he went back in time, he wouldn't need a doctor. It was perfect.

He'd need a loan shark and a micro-teleportation unit. Thankfully he saw both stores across the street. He stepped over Alvin's corpse and headed in for a loan.

"How much you need?" asked Mr. Loan, morbidly obese, surrounded by used diapers and Subway-sandwich wrappers.

"Fifty big ones."

"Over there under the diapers."

Aintree sifted through.

A gun clicked.

"Not THOSE diapers." Aintree could almost physically feel the dangerous edge in Mr. Loan's words. Also maybe some old pizza.

It was definitely not the time to remind this guy to brush three times a day. Plus something about the fact that there were used diapers everywhere just wasn't sitting right. (Where the hell were all the babies?)

"I said"--a cold, hard cylinder bit into the back of Aintree's neck--"not THOSE diapers!"

"Okay, okay . . ." Aintree backed away, officially not liking where this was going. "Which--?"

Before he could get out another word he surprised the bastard by spinning around and shooting him in the gut. The stench of stale cheese filled the room as gut gases were unleashed. Mr. Loan oozed out on the floor, partly liquefying because he was some kind of alien life-form.

With that taken care of, Aintree checked under "THOSE" diapers, wondering what could possibly be underneath. He used the Excelsior to clear them away. What he saw shocked him.

A tunnel leading underground. Within were hundreds of Asian children, slaving away on counterfeit Subway sandwiches. They all wore diapers.

Aintree turned and shot Mr. Loan a few more times with the Excelsior for apparently running a literal underground child-slave operation. Briefly it occurred to him that this alien universe might be racist. Subway was going to have some explaining to do after this was all over, but for now he needed to focus.

"All right, listen up, kids!" he shouted. His vision wavered from loss of blood. "I need fifty-thousand dollars, now!" He raised the Excelsior.

Hundreds of dirty little faces stared blankly up at him.

He realized, then, gazing into the innocent eyes of the child slaves, that he could choose to do the right thing and just steal the money when he arrived in the past.

"Okay, never mind," he shouted. "Sorry. Go about your business."

Carefully, he replaced the diapers over the tunnel. Then sloshed around in Mr. Loan's ooze, before looking for cash. He found twenty bucks, an Xtra-Small condom and an old Gameboy in the desk drawer. He took everything, then went next door to the pawn shop.

Aintree dropped the stolen goods on the counter. "What kind of MTU can I get for all this?"

Pawny the Pawn King pooched out his lips. He nodded and walked Aintree to the back of the store. "This."

It was a cardboard box with "Macro-Tellyport" written in black marker by a child's unsteady hand.

Aintree said, "I'll take it," and jammed his head inside.

"No refunds!" Pawny shouted quickly.

Aintree waited for something to happen. And waited. And waited some more. Eventually, when he felt like enough of an idiot—bent over with his head in a cardboard box—he pulled his head out. "It doesn't work."

"No refunds!"

"But you sold me a useless product."

"You traded in useless products!" Pawny countered, waving a finger.

"Hey, that Gameboy worked great fifty years ago. And if you don't want that snug-fit condom, I'll gladly take it off your hands."

"Twenty— No, thirty dollars!"

Sighing, Aintree took out his Excelsior. "I really didn't want to do this but I'm going to have to burgle you. NOW GIVE ME ALL YOUR MIRCRO TRANSMITTERS, BITCH!"

"Um." The guy shifted uncomfortably. "That's not burgling, technically . . ."

"WHAT?" Aintree jabbed the Excelsior at his chest.

"I mean, it's robbing, dude. You're robbing me, not burgling me. If you want to burgle me, you're gonna have to wait until I leave."

"Dammit." Aintree muttered under his breath. "You're right." He dropped the Excelsior to his side.

"Sorry, dude. I mean, I go to lunch at noon . . .?"

"Yeah, yeah." Aintree waved a hand. "I think I'll just have to rob you."

He was beginning to lose consciousness, so—

"Eh, eh! No dying on my floor! You die on my floor, it's two-fifty for inconveniencing me!"

"Sorry," Aintree mumbled, slumping to the floor. "Do... Do you got that, um, that condom? Oh god." He pulled out the wad of cardboard from his chest and gagged when he saw his lung—glued with coagulated blood—was coming with it.

"Ah, shit, man, you're making a mess on my nice clean floors!" Pawny grabbed a mop and bucket and got to work.

Aintree, practically about to die, saw two choices— Three, rather: Suicide, condom, or jumping into a micro-teleportation unit. Weighing his options, Aintree wheezed, "Wait, two dollars and fifty cents, or two-hundred-fifty dollars?"

The pawnbroker kicked him in the stomach and raced for a 50's-era rotary phone on the display counter. "Hello, operator? Get me the police! Hurry, I'm being robbed!"

"Okay, there is no way that wasn't set up." By now all Aintree could see was a big rainbow wheel, spinning, shooting sparkles, growing larger and larger and engulfing his vision. His body was numb.

But he had made a promise to his late grandfather never to die on the floor of an old pawnshop like Mammy. He summoned every ounce of strength he had left, and turned his head. What he saw there on the floor beside him lit him with childish joy.

It was one of those colourful children's toy phones on wheels. Buried under a mountain of dust-bunnies, pubes and—what the hell?—soiled diapers, Aintree was able to reach out, grab it and roll it towards him. He blew away the dust-bunnies and pubes and saw it was still plugged in. Knocking the handset off, he spun in the number for children's services, then pretended to bawl like a baby.

Within seconds, a van painted in primary colours pulled up.

Across town, the police Pawny had called were sitting in a Tim Horton's parking lot, devouring Timbits at their leisure.

Aintree had learned not to question the presence of soiled diapers when in the act of escaping death in a parallel universe. Whatever the answer was, he didn't want to know.

In his delirious in-between state, he could just barely make out the four buff men in bright bleached-white suits and matching baseball caps emerging from the colorful van, and as they plunged into a brisk march toward the pawn-shop's glass-fronted entrance he decided two things. One, pre-school here was fucked-up. And two, whatever universe that blunt had sucked him into seemed to be a sort of retro 1950's dystopia.

Which led him to his third decision: immediately leave.

And with no foreseeable possibility of finding a micro-teleportation unit nearby, Aintree saw no other option. Quickly, he tucked the Excelsior into the inside pocket of his windbreaker. He stuck his thumb in his mouth, curled into a ball, and started rocking back and forth.

Then he waited patiently as the men in white burst into the shop with primitive, crackling tasers.

They gave him a jolt each and watched while he writhed on the floor.

"Big baby, huh?" said one with a harelip.

"It's not a baby," said one with one eye.

"Looks like a pretty normal-sized baby to me," said one with a tail hanging out the ass of his white slacks.

"Drrr," said one who was putting his taser up his nose and shooting himself.

Then the four grabbed an arm and a leg each and lugged him outside towards the van.

"What the fuck?" One-Eye asked. "He's got a hole in his chest. Drop him. We ain't touching... wait, can you guys hear that?"

His three companions stared at One-Eye, their faces awash with the collectively blank expression of a group of men who get paid very well to carry out a very specific, small number of tasks, with IQs low enough so as not to get distracted by, well...

"Is that, music?"

"I dunno', but it's definitely got a beat," said One-Eye, involuntarily shaking his booty as his left foot tapped out of time.

And then, because sometimes these things actually do happen, a tear in the Space/Time Continuum appeared directly from the hole in Aintree's chest.