TERRY

I flung the case into the trunk and slammed the lid, tossing a few things onto the back seat. Uma was standing looking up at her home thoughtfully.

"What is it? Worried you've left the oven on?" I tried to tease, lighten the moment. She shook her head.

"Now it comes to it, I'm scared, Terry. Scared to leave, scared to stay." She sighed. "This could get better, but it could get so much worse. I'm not sure I can take much more..."

I came up behind her and held her close to me, my hands covering her stomach. "It is better. I will make this right. Trust me. Do you believe in me?"

She turned and looked up. "You know I do..."

"...Then let me do the worrying for both of us? OK? You and Fred in here just keep on growing and doing fine. That's your job. Guilt and worry are mine. You got that?"

I managed to raise a wan smile from her and again noticed how pale and listless she was, although she was trying to hide it. I was worried. Already.

"Come on...let's get this show on the road..." I helped her settle and then reached in the back for a small cushion I had carried out from the house.

"What's that for?" she queried. I tucked it underneath her seat belt above her stomach.

"Just a precaution. Humour me, Tink..." She gave me a puzzled look but shrugged and I ran round and got into the driver's seat, starting the engine and moving off quickly.

"Why are we going this way? The motorway is the other direction," she observed as I pulled out onto the street.

I kept my voice steady. "Small matter of your portal, love. It's up here..."

"Where? How did you find it?" she asked, curious now.

"Just lucky, I guess," I grinned but I saw her sideways glance; her face showed some suspicion. She knows when I'm ducking the issue. We carried on down the road in silence. Up ahead were the traffic lights and they were on green. I slowed down and crept along, giving them a chance to change.

"Can't you go any faster, Terry? What's the matter with you...the cars behind are horning you!" she observed.

The light changed to red. I revved up and put my foot down.

"Terry! The lights have changed....you can't go through now!!...." But I was about to. Uma gasped as we picked up speed and headed for the portal. I tightened my grip on the wheel with one hand and rested the other against her in an instinctive move to stop her slumping forward with the momentum. I almost missed the kid charging out across the crossing.

"Fuck...." I swerved. A high pitched scream rang on and on in my ears for what seemed like minutes of slow motion as we hurtled at an angle across the lights, aiming for the ten foot brick wall of a nearby school. I couldn't stop the car- even jamming on the brakes and yanking up the handbrake was not going to stop this high performance engine at such proximity.

There was a flash, a dizzy blinding wave of light and sound - and then we were driving along the road at normal speed and it was raining. Tink was still screaming; I estimated only a few seconds had passed. With a screech of brakes, I stopped the car and she stopped the noise; in fact she seemed to be holding her breath.

"What happened?" She blurted out in a rush of words. "Why did you do that?"

I unfastened my seat belt and reached over to her. "Are you all right? Hurt? How do you feel?"

She sobbed and held up her hands. "Why did you do that? What happened? We were going to crash...that wall!"

I took her hands- she was ice cold. "I...your portal, Tink...I had to do it ...remember ...the night you first met Bud? On the way home from school you ran a red light because your car was cutting out when you stopped. Remember? That was the moment...you chose to take a chance and in doing so changed your life forever..."

Her sharp intake of breath sounded like a groan. "We just went back? This is PW?"

"Yeah..."

"What date is it?"

"I don't know. I crossed yesterday and it was March 20th for me but to you, it was May 31st. I have no fucking idea what has happened since. I wasn't actually thinking of dates when we passed though just then...too busy having my sorry life pass before my eyes..." I looked sheepishly at her; she gave me a frown.

Winding down the window, Uma spoke to a lady passing by with a dog on a leash. "Excuse me- can you tell me today's date, please?"

"Of course, love, it's the 30th."

"Of May?" Uma asked.

The woman gave her a surprised look. "May? No...April...."

"But it is 2004?" she insisted.

At that the woman quickened her pace. "Yes." She hurried on looking back as if we were aliens who had just landed. Come to think of it we were.

Uma sank back in her seat. Her hands instinctively felt her baby. "I'm still as big as ever. I mean...Jesus, I would die if I had to go through an extra 4 weeks of pregnancy now. This is so fucked up. I disappeared on March 5th but it was April 11th when I got there- and my pregnancy had advanced. You crossed on March 15th, 10 days later but I had spent 6 weeks here already. Now we go back and it's April 30th although you were only away one day and yet, this time my pregnancy seems unaffected...what the fuck is it all about?"

I shrugged. "Even JFN has only a vague notion of the process of time within the portal. To some extent we seem to be able to control it but we have to be conscious of that. When we aren't, then it seems to be arbitrary. I don't know...I just don't know..."

She closed her eyes and started to take long slow breaths.

"Are you sure you are all right?" I asked again.

"Yeah...my back hurts a lot again but it's just sitting down, I think...I just had a real bad shock, Terry. Let's get this journey over, huh?"

I started the engine and we set off. Tink appeared to be ready for sleep and I was glad for her to get some rest. As she dozed, I called Phil; he was standing by with the jet, flight clearance already in the pipeline, merely waiting on us. I put my foot down when we hit the motorway and headed south.

Maybe she had been asleep, maybe she had been merely thinking, but about an hour later, Uma suddenly sat up and turned to me.

"Terry...there's a flaw in the reasoning."

I looked across. "Go back to sleep. Stop thinking it over. Rest."

She was annoyed. "Shut up, Terry. Just because you tell me to stop thinking doesn't mean I can. For Christ's sake! I was hurtled back here by some heartless godhead and had to face this shit alone. Then you turn up and give me the fright of my life. Then I nearly get killed...how can I just lie back and be a dopey expectant Mum thinking happy thoughts? I'm not a fucking moron just because I'm pregnant...I still have a few functioning brain cells left...."

It was great to hear her talk like this. She needed to whip herself up into one of her passionate moods- it seemed so much more normal than the passive, listless behaviour she had been exhibiting. I realised that I was wrong to treat her with kid gloves. Uma is always best under fire. She can whinge all day if she has period pains. She will cry if she breaks a nail. The whole world ends if she can't get a pair of shoes she wants in her size. But... kidnapped by a crazed killer? No problem...let me just talk my way out of this one. I could go on all day with examples like that. When other people go under- she gets down and deals. But no olives for her Martini and she is a hopeless wreck.

"So, what you come up with? What do you mean- the logic is flawed?"

She took a deep breath and was off. "Why did I find Jack's cross and chain under the lining of my handbag? Why did it not disappear with everything else?"

I thought. "Good point. Like your scarf. Why did the scarf remain under the cupboard in the nursery?"

"Exactly! Exactly!" she shouted triumphantly.

"Just a minute, calm down. Perhaps Griselda forgot- even goddesses can have off days?" I ventured.

"Terry...whoever the fuck she is...she brought you all here, created the fucking portals, cured men on the brink of death- cured Teener of those awful scars and the internal problems... she wouldn't have a problem making everything disappear! That would be simple. She is omnipotent. She says "Disappear!" and you fucking disappear...I think we were meant to find them. Not immediately... but in time."

"But why?" I asked, already forming an idea in my head but letting her run on.

She bit her lip. "Because....because...she was helping me realise that PW had been real and I hadn't imagined it all. She wanted me to know that you were out there somewhere. She wanted me to try and find you...."

"And the scarf? I didn't need that to want to find you - I knew what had happened..."

"... So that you could find me. How else did you cross my portal without me? I got through yours 'cos I'm carrying your child. Your matter is inside me. But how did you get through mine? That scarf, it smells of my perfume, you said...probably my pheromones, too...I don't know- maybe a single cell is enough- what the fuck- I'm not a molecular biologist..." I grinned at her dismissive style. I love her best in sharp shooter mode.

And she was right on the nail. The scarf had been bothering me all along. There had to be a logic in the illogicality- it had never made sense to me. There had to be a reason.

"So, the goddess plants a clue for you and a free pass for me....why? She doesn't want you back. She doesn't want me to find you. You got your marching orders...or do you think this is not what it seems?"

The endless motorway stretched out before us, rain battering down on the windscreen while we sat and thought strange and bizarre theories to explain this apparent anomaly.

"Terry, let's start at the beginning. She's a goddess. All powerful, all-knowing. What kind of deity? I mean is she of a pantheistic nature or is she some monotheistic force?"

I snorted. "English, Professor Plum. I'm rifle bait not Intelligence Corps."

She grinned. "I mean... is she like a spirit in a pagan religion..." I pulled a face. She sighed. "OK...history lesson..." I groaned. "Shut up, I'll be brief..."

"That's a fucking first, then..." She swatted my arm.

"To the ancients there were spirits of nature who just existed but were not really cognisant...like the rivers and the forests and the fields... people knew that they were mischievous or even malicious so they left out offerings to propitiate them, you know. But there were also higher end spirits- real major league gods and goddesses who were largely unconcerned about humans - but aware of them. They often either simply stepped like ants on men and women for sport or even played around with their lives for fun. They had no notions of good and evil- they just did it because they could.  People had festivals and sacrifices and worship and stuff to try and avoid getting on the wrong side of these potentially malevolent forces. Got it?"

I nodded.

"Right. They are what we call the pagan pantheistic gods. Now, we also have the other kind...the monotheistic- One God religions. Here we have a deity who is actively involved with humanity. He cares for them and is paternalistic (or maybe maternalistic in this case?). He/She watches over them and guides them, giving them a philosophy to live by and a reward for a good life. Humans have free will and are tested but can overcome their human weaknesses to triumph and win a place in heaven...you know the sort of crap..."

I grinned at her irreverence. "Yeah, love, I was taught by nuns as well..."

"So which one is our Griselda?" She asked bluntly.

"You tell me."

"Well, I don't know, do I? Can we stop...I'm hungry and I need a wee. Plus I want to think..."

A burger and chips, visit to the ladies and a bag of mixed sweets to suck on later and we were back on the road...

I put on a CD and settled back with lots on my mind, hoping she finally let her brain take a break and leave the thinking to me. Some chance.

"Terry...?"

"Yeah?"

"You ever see Clash of the Titans?"

Sometimes her lateral brain leaves me gasping. "What is that? Some WWF special?"

She giggled. "No, you dope! The film...they always show it...it was made yonks ago...about Perseus and Andromeda...Harry Hamlin was Perseus... I had crush on him...ages before LA Law- he had great legs...and that sort of curly hair the Greek poets likened to a hyacinth..."

"Is your intention actually to send me to sleep behind this wheel?" I interrupted, pretty sure she had really lost her marbles this time.

"You are so impatient...I was setting the scene. In this film the Gods sort of play games with humans. They live on Mt. Olympus and have a little statue of everyone in the world. They take you down from your pigeon hole when they want to make something happen in your life...it's like a great big....oh God....OH MY GOD....." She stopped and stared open-mouthed.

"You got me now....WHAT? A great big what?"

"CHESS BOARD! Like a great big chess game...and they monitor what is going on by looking in a glassy pond which sort of reflects down on earth and fills them in on what has been happening..."

I was getting the picture. I knew the film and I had a very good idea where her thinking was leading her to. "Go on..."

"Our DEA. What kind of goddess is she? What's her power?"

I laughed. "Gotta be sex...love...maybe she's Venus?"

"Could be. So, her hobby since the beginning of time has been making lovers fall in love and playing with their lives. She watches and plays. But, you know, time might change but the fucking humans keep making the same mistakes..."

"Too right. Boy meets girl...he falls for her she doesn't- breaks his heart. Boy meets girl ...reverse scenario. Boy meets girl...parents object. Boy meets girl...gets her pregnant and has to marry too young. Boy meets girl...they marry... he fucks about or she fucks about. Boy meets girl...she gets cancer..."

Uma grinned at me..."Do you read women's love stories? But yeah...that is the point. There are only so many ways it can go. And she is pretty bored of it all by now. Humans are just so predictable. She wonders why...and has a good look at society. Sure, it changes over millennia- and religion and culture affect it -but, you know, essentially it stays pretty much the same. Why?"

I smirked smugly. "The constants don't change. Human emotions are fixed. Sexuality is biologically based. Men are programmed one way, women another. Once children come into the equation, then an inevitable pattern occurs..."

"Yeah...fundamentally burn your bra or not, love, you are stuck with the baby and your biology - and he isn't; you bear the brunt of society's need to protect the future and thus the traditionally accepted norms kick in..."

I waved my hand to make a further point. "So, DEA wants a new game but she knows that the constants have to be changed. If she can start again with men and women in a new reality with new constants then she can watch and learn- see if a brave new world is possible."

"YES! Exactly! The second garden of Eden, Terry. Stocked with Adams and Eves hand picked by her in some way. But she didn't start with Adam. This time she started with Eve. Her first problem was female sexuality. Women do not as easily swap partners as men. She needed to change this to make the Game more free and the experiment more variable. Why don't women screw around as freely as men in general?"

"Biological impulse?"

"Crap. We want it, too. OK, maybe not quite as much as a fifteen-year-old little male wanker...but, we still want sex. No, the real thing is this. A woman must find the best mate- the alpha to breed with- and if she gets a bad rep- that good catch won't consider her. She must secure her future for the wellbeing of her child. So...take away childbearing from the equation what have you got then?"

I shrugged. "Blokes still have a double standard about a tart."

"Correct...so, she increases the female allure by giving them a 'pull'. The chosen men will not be able to resist them. They will adore them and never judge their availability as being 'easy'."

"Ah...but these women come from the real world. They have morality and standards of their own. You can't make them fuck any bloke just because he's available and fancies them..."

"Of course not...so she has to pick men who are exceptional and feed female fantasies. Now in the old days she would have picked a load of Greek heroes to play stud. Achilles, Theseus...Odysseus, you know? What to do now...who are the new epic heroes? ...Bloody Hollywood actors, aren't they? Trouble is...A) They are too visible. B) They might object to leaving the day job of being adored by millions when there are only a handful of women in this garden. C) They were only acting tough- they can't really do what the stunts imply, unlike heroes of old. D) Women are very picky (unlike men who will go for any physically perfect specimen) - a girl might perve one of these pins-up but not another. The goddess needs men who will resonate with all the women- tall order. E) She wants a varied group of intelligent attractive women who are not normally found in the ranks of fandom- this experiment won't work if the women are not spunky enough to be a real challenge to the men- we are not talking groupies here."

I nodded and chewed on my lip. "So...she looks at a celebrity who seems to match her idea of male perfection- and also who seems to push the buttons of a wide variety of intelligent women who don't usually fall for film stars. So Crowe pops up in her magic pond. He's a bit of a dangerous lab rat- he's unlikely to play fucking ball- but...his characters are a very diverse and possibly a more malleable and needy bunch..."

"Dead on, Tez. They are attractive, sexy, intelligent, flawed, sensitive, tough, brutal, looking for love- good men who deserve a second chance....you know the score...so she does an old goddess trick...ever heard of Pygmalion? He was a sculptor who couldn't find the perfect wife- so he carved what he fancied and Aphrodite/Venus made her real...Crowe creates the character- 'the Creator'...Griselda breathes life into him and makes him real...she then creates this bloke's entire life and family background...by reduplicating reality in a series of complex parallel existences..."

"...Using the Crowe sites, she finds what she needs...a set of women who are already lusting after his body and pretty interested in his soul as well...she lures them via the Internet into a Game that is actually a Game that is actually her Game...."

"Ta da! Isobel first. Already a gifted computer specialist -but with an unusual side line- magic and an interest in alternative philosophies.  Inspires her to found the Temple...One-by-one the characters roll up...she playfully calls herself the priestess of the sex God...when she is in fact the priestess of the Love goddess- although she doesn't know it. Griselda's consort is Crowe - although he has no fucking idea either- he just thinks he's God..." I gave Terry a punch... "...and off we go."

"But what is she hoping for? Sex games? Sex without responsibility? Intelligent women who are able to control the game of sexual chess that men and women have been playing since time began, instead of letting men call all the shots? See if it works any better this way round?" I conjectured.

"It might have started like that- but maybe she simply wants to see what these people will do. The women love the characters and see sleeping around with any number of them as, in a sense, sleeping with the same man- therefore not morally unsound. The men are infused with Crowe's overactive libido anyway, plus the 'pull' to this group of women, and a respect for each other that limits competition for the women. Or that is the theory anyway. A level playing field for sexuality for the first time ever. A new Eden."

"But there is always a snake." Uma tartly reminded me.

"Oh yes, there is always a snake. Maybe she wants a snake. Maybe she wants a few snakes. I mean....after a while endless fucking and every one loving each other in some Age of Aquarius hippy love-fest is as boring as before. She knows that- any one who has ever watched porn knows that. No, she wants the human dynamic to burn bright. These are feisty women with good brains. These are powerful men who are the least likely to accept a leash, particularly from a woman. How long before the fun starts to happen?"

"At first, the men like the place. Beautiful women, love and sex, friendship and support- they have all come out of bad situations and need a time to regroup and chill. But then things start to change...relationships start to form within the group. Personalities differ widely and so some are bound to find more a affinity to a particular man or woman- and that goes for Brothers with Brothers as well as Sisters with Sisters- just as much as in sexual couples. It causes some jockeying for position. Some jealousy at times. But largely these people seem to be able to work together harmoniously. The experiment is looking good."

"OK...Griselda is an old hand...she knows this needs more strain to test it...some more snakes.  The men start to show that their brains are not only in their dicks. They want more control. Careers. To live outside the Temple- choose a partner...make private arrangements... and then we have the real snake...Nash. Someone who has the ability to deconstruct the construct."

"...And a couple of people with a desire to test the boundaries."

We both sat back and took a breath. I looked at him and he looked at me. "Is this for real - or are we just clutching at straws?" I asked her.

"We have no idea. But we have two choices. We can choose to believe that she is not malicious, merely curious, or we can choose to believe that she is evil and wishes us harm. Either way we can't change any of it. Only she can. Personally, I choose to believe in the glass half full approach- why torment ourselves with needless worry? "

I rubbed at my jaw. "Yeah...well, I am a notorious glass half empty kind of bloke..."

Uma leaned over and took my hand resting lightly over the gear stick. "Good job that we make a full pint then together, isn't it?" I smiled across at her.

"Good job one of us has his head screwed on right, ya mean?" She grinned and I tightened the grip on her slender fingers. Somehow it felt better than any sex I had ever had just to touch her hand and know that she was there.

"Well, we choose to believe that we have a chance- that Dea is not really punishing us but simply testing us. Can we look for some empirical data?"

I chuckled at that. "You mean a clue?"

"Well...yeah..."

I drove on in silence a while. "Teener and Heather."

"What?" she asked.

"Teener is pregnant. It's public knowledge, too. Heather is pregnant. You reckon Dea can find out about you and not them? Why did she wait six months? She knew the night we did it in the lift- before we knew for sure..."

"So what's your point?"

"It's the proof.  Think logically. You were zapped back across your portal- but Heather was still there in PW and Teener, too...why was she only angry with you?"

Uma shrugged. "Because I started it?"

"Doesn't change the fact that babies will be born in PW now."

"Maybe they've been taken already...we don't know that?"

"As of March 31st- almost 3 weeks later- they hadn't...It isn't conclusive proof but it suggests a different rationale. The probability of our theory being correct is more likely than unlikely with that factor..."

"Jesus...you sound like a real professional K and R man...I love it when you talk all military intelligence terms and say 'factor' and 'conclusive'..."

"Do you know you are completely crazy?"

"Well...yeah...I live with you, don't I?"

"Get serious for a moment...I don't know what has happened to the others, but my thinking is that something will have been thrown their way and they have their own Holy Grails to contend with so that she ascertain how many permutations of this new variable she can have..."

"Are we like Arthur and Guinevere?" Uma asked with a giggle.

I sighed... "I was being metaphorical. Stop distracting me... We do not know what has occurred to Lachlan and Heather or Teener and Hando so we have to lay that one down until we get back. As far as we are concerned, however, we've been cast out of Eden and yet we came straight back in. What does that tell her?"

Uma took a deep breath. "That we like it here? That we are refusing to follow her commands? That we have found a way around her obstacles? That we have achieved our aim and are returning to Camelot with our treasure? I don't know? What do you think?"

"I think we get off at the next slip road...I have no fucking idea after that...just that there is always only one road in life...the one ahead. Never been truer for us. We actually can't go back. Or rather if we do...." My voice tailed off, unwilling to complete the sentence, aware at how brutal the reality of where we were now might be for a woman heavy with child to realise.

"...We are dead. I know that, Terry. We have no choices left- which kind of makes it easier. There is only one pair of shoes left on the shelf now. It was bound to happen to me one day..."

She gave me a sad little smile and I knew then that whatever happened that it would still have been worth it. She would be there holding my hand while I held hers. Who could ever ask for more in life than that at the end of the day?

"Something I want you to know, Uma."

"Yes?"

"I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for Maximus."

"What?" I filled her in about how it had been. She sat staring out of the window as the airport came into view. The rain had given way to a late spring damp sunshine, the pools of water on the tarmac glistening. I couldn't see her face.

"I owe him everything. I just wanted you to know that," I whispered, looking straight ahead.

She turned her face to mine. I saw the shine of tears and the bright red spots in her pale cheeks. "You never gave him a chance, Terry. You were always too busy worrying that you didn't match up to him. When all along he knew he couldn't match up to you. That's why he's such a brave man...he faces himself and never shirks the truth. You could learn a lot from him."

I pulled sharply into the designated parking lot. "I already have," I replied quietly before switching off the engine and opening the car door.