“Where are we going again?” Howie asked as he followed Vimes up the long cobbled street. He was beginning to remember now and he knew that this place was like nothing he had ever seen before. The rows of houses and shops were brown and filthy and looked as if a giant had squeezed them all together to make more room for more untidy houses.

Howie could remember seeing tall buildings with glass windows that glinted in the sunlight… and he was also certain that his world did not smell nearly as bad as this did. The stench seemed to emit from a brown, thick river that ran through the centre of the city. River might have been the wrong word though seeing as rivers were supposed to flow and this was too thick to even ooze along…

“We’re going to the Unseen University so that I can dump you with the wizards. They sent you here so they can deal with you now,” Vimes said simply.

“I remember wizards,” Howie said as his brow furrowed. “I remember dropping onto the floor and they were surrounding us.” He paused for a moment. “I wonder where my friends are.”

“You remember them now then do you?”

Howie nodded eagerly. Hanging upside down in the scorpion pit had done wonders for his memory. “AJ, Kevin, Brick and Brack,” he said certainly.

“Are you sure? They sound like bloody odd names to me! What cruel mother called her kid Brick?” He snorted slightly.

Howie scratched his head as they took a road that led to a more quieter part of the town. “I’m sure that’s right.” He shook his head. “I’m sure everything will come back to me soon.” As soon as he returned home he would feel better. He stared at the houses at the side of him, their windows obscured by grime. “What if the wizards can’t send me home?” he asked nervously.

“They damn well better be able to. I don’t wann get stuck with you!” Vimes muttered under his breath.

“What?”

“Nothing… Er, I’m sure they’ll be able to help you somehow. You can’t stay here. The assassins will get you, and I didn’t much like his babble about the end of the world.”

“This world’s gonna end?” Howie could feel his eyes bulging out of his head. Getting out of here was seeming more like a better idea every second.

“I don’t know. The wizards are always doing something they shouldn’t be doing. Damn nuisance if you ask me. They should all be banned from doing magic! They’re always meddling with things they shouldn’t be and they have that death trap they call a library! I once got sent back in time because of that thing!” Vimes said, irritation creeping into his voice as he thought of the wizards. “Ah, we’re here now.” He pointed to some stone steps that led up to a huge, bulbous shaped building. “Bloody huge!”

Howie squinted as he stared up at the grubby building which looked as if a child had clumsily shaped it out of stale clay. “Doesn’t look that big.”

“Trust me, it’s worse when you get in there. It’s bigger outside than it is in. It just randomly expands.”

“How’s that possible?” Howie tried to stare up at some of the windows but couldn’t see anything with the sun glaring at him.

“Magic. It just creeps around the corridor and twists the place up. It mutates a lot of the animals around here as well.” Vimes pointed to a rat in a top hat that was walking casually along the street.

“Good morning to you sir!” squeaked the rat.

Howie gasped at the rat and watched as it somehow managed to smile at him, which couldn’t have been possible for a rat to do. Vimes ignored him. “Right, let’s see if we can find Ponder, eh? I would take you to the Archancellor, but he’s an idiot so we’ll settle with Ponder.”


******************************

“Are you done yet?” AJ asked casually as he used a spoon he had found to flick another tiny piece of fluff at Hex’s mouse, watching as it squeaked and cleaned its whiskers.

“What was the answer five minutes ago?” Ponder asked without turning away from the panel he was tapping at.

“Er, no?” AJ guessed.

Ponder nodded. “And do you think it has changed now?”

“I don’t know, that’s why I’m asking you,” AJ said calmly. He watched the irritation creeping into Ponder’s features. He was bored and he needed something to do. He had tried to play with Hex but Ponder had told him to leave it alone when all it did was write +++ MELON +++ or once +++ BANANANANANANANA +++ Now he was left with nothing to do but wind Ponder up. It was fun. Almost as much fun as winding Howie up.

Ponder had made a few calculations using Hex and then he had sat at the panel silently working but now he looked as if he were about to bring his hands crashing down upon the panel in front of him. At the last minute though he seemed to calm himself and instead seized a forgotten piece of paper and began to crumple it up in his hand.

“Look,” he said, his voice wobbling ominously between calm and watch-out-because-I’m-about-to-blow-up-and-shout-at-you. “I told you that it takes a while to charge up the omniscope.”

“It has been a while!” AJ protested.

“It’s been fifteen minutes!”

“And it’s not done yet?”

“No!”

AJ watched as Ponder’s pale hand crunched up the paper even more. “It needs another ten minutes or so,” he explained. “And then I can get you out of here!”

AJ grinned. “Here’s nice. I could stay here.”

Ponder looked horrified at the thought. His eyes widened and AJ swore that he could sweat forming on his forehead. “No!”

“I’m bored,” AJ sighed.

“I assure you’ll be out of here and causing trouble in your own world soon,” Ponder said. In a whispered voice he added, “Or I hope so or I might be driven to suicide.”

“Hey, I’m not that bad!” AJ protested. “Oh I get it, you’re just acted like a higher being or something because you think I’m stupid!”

“No, I - ”

“I’m ready for you baby!” AJ said as he leapt to his feet with his fists raised. “Come on!”

“Am I interrupting anything?” another voice asked from the other side of the room.

AJ spun around to see a dark haired man in armour watching him curiously. There was a sword in his sheath. AJ immediately pointed his finger at Ponder. “Whatever it was, it was him!”

“Ah, Mister Vimes!” ponder said with something close to relief on his face at the distraction. “What can I do for you today commander?”

AJ folded his arms and sat down again. The last thing he wanted to do was speak with another nerd from this world. He was tired of nerds and wanted to go home and have a drink and go to bed and forget everything that had happened here, but that would probably take a lifetime. He doubted if he could forget being chased by a wild thesaurus in a hurry.

“I’ve got a present for you,” the newcomer Vimes said. “You sent him here and now you can deal with him!”

AJ raised his head as another person stepped into view from the doorway. He froze and tilted his shades away from his eyes to check that what he was seeing wasn’t just a smudge on the glass. “Howie!” he cried.

Howie looked up, but before he could say anything AJ was already on his feet and wrapping his arms about him. “Howie man, it’s great to see you! I thought I was gonna be alone with these freaks forever!”

“AJ!” Howie replied. “God, you’re not the only one! This place is insane!” Howie pulled away from him and frowned as he glanced about him. “Hey where’s Kev and Brick and Brack?”

AJ almost choked slightly. “Who? Who the hell’s Brick?” He paused. “Oh wait, you mean Nick? Yeah, I guess he does act a bit like a brick sometimes.”

“Not another one!” Ponder groaned.

“You sent them here, so you can send them home!” Vimes said as he dusted his hands. “Good day, I must get back to the Watch House. Goodbye Howie lad!”

AJ watched as Howie waved and he saw that Ponder looked even more terrified at the prospect of being stuck with two of them.

“Wait! You can’t leave them both here with me!” Ponder begged at Vimes. Please stay!”

“They’re your problems. Not mine!” Vimes said simply. “Goodbye!”

Ponder turned back to them both looking a little pale. “Well, um, I guess this is good. At least I only have to find three others now.” He slowly crossed back to the panel he had been sat at before.

Howie looked across at AJ. “What’s going on here? I’ve had assassins chasing me!”

“You think that’s bad? I had a thesaurus trying to bite my legs off and a student tried to hump my leg!” AJ replied.

Howie looked across at ponder. “Can you get us home?”

“With pleasure. The sooner you’re out of here the better.” The ground began to tremble beneath their feet. “These earthquakes are getting worse. The Disc won’t hold for much longer.”

Howie frowned. “I don’t understand. What’s going on?”

“An experiment brought you accidentally to our world, the Discworld, but there was a problem. You don’t belong in this world and your presence is destroying our world.”

“So we need to get out of here quick,” AJ finished, nodding his head.

“The world’s gonna end?” Howie squeaked.

“Correct,” Ponder affirmed. “And now the omniscope is ready and I’ve finished making the calculations I need.”

“You’re sending us back now?” Howie asked with relief. “Good, I can’t wait to get back home! This place is nuts! And I really don’t want to be around if this place is going to explode or something!”

“We have to find the others first,” AJ replied. “This weirdo here is going to send us to one of the others. We then have to wait there and he’ll send the other two to where we are. When all five of us are together, he can send us home.” He looked across at Ponder, wondering if he was impressed that AJ had remembered it all. He certainly was.

Ponder raised an eyebrow. “Very good. You appear to have a brain after all.”

“Hey!” AJ protested. “That’s not very nice!”

Ponder ignored him. “We’re ready now and the omniscope should be fully charged. It’s in the great hall so we’ll have to make our way up there. I used Hex to calculate the exact position of one of your friends. He appears to be on a boat so I’ll send you to him. Remember though that you must stay where you are once you get there! You’ll need to stop that boat and just wait.”

Howie and AJ nodded. “Okay,” Howie said.

“And you?” ponder asked AJ.

“Yeah I get it.”

“Good, because if this goes wrong I’ll be stuck with you.”

AJ shrugged. “But I won’t really have the time to annoy you anymore because the world will end if this doesn’t work!”

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