The Cowboy, the Empathy Kitten, and the Cube: Space and Time, #1

By James Anders Banks

Award winner Daren King now writing darkly comic superhero time travel sci-fi as James Anders Banks.

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Super powers. A time machine. What could possibly go wrong...?

The universe is under threat from a killer robot arm from outer space. It seems everyone is after that arm, including Britain's MI7, Russia's KGB2, the Intergalactic Bureau of Investigation (known as the Men in Tweed) and the terrifying Space Police in their size 23 razorboots.

If anyone can save the day, it's the Companions in Space and Time.

But just as the team get on top of the situation, Area 51 scientist Isaac Dewey Thinker reveals the truth: the robot, hellbent on destroying every living thing in the universe, can be destroyed only when fully assembled.

A dark yet playfully comic science fiction adventure for those up for a wild ride through space and time.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Admission Books
• Release date: Nov 14, 2021
• ISBN: 9781838473945

Book preview

admissionbooks.com

SPACE AND TIME 1

THE COWBOY,

THE EMPATHY KITTEN

AND THE CUBE

James Anders Banks

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CONTENTS

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PREVIEW

jackandjames.consulting

BOOKS BY JAMES ANDERS BANKS

LETTER FROM JAMES ANDERS BANKS

AIV: Anders Interactive Video

COPYRIGHT

1

Aliens walk among us. The fact we have never seen one proves it.

The opening argument of amateur ufologist Michael Vegas Mike on the mic Vega’s science lecture.

Caitlín Cat O’Connell considered the premise utterly barking. So she listened transfixed to every word. The hood of her plush gray cat-ear hoody down so as not to obstruct her real ears. Hugging the gray wrap-around tail. Wriggling her toes in the pink flip-flops, in the front row of the crowd of 200 comic book fans.

Vegas Mike—his stage name, before his career as a Vegas showman was brought to an abrupt end in the summer of 2019—never did explain how the fact no one had ever seen an alien from outer space proved their existence.

Cat did not mind this. Why let sound scientific reasoning get in the way of a good thesis?

Like much of the crowd, she found Mike’s enthusiasm as infectious as his smile and his deep southern drawl.

Did she detect a hint of French Canadian?

She enjoyed the slides on the 20 foot screen above the showman’s head. ALF the Alien Life Form from some 1980s NBC sitcom she was too young to remember. Demonia from DC Comics and Zorr from Marvel, Noo-Noo from some barmy Brit show, several blue and green-skinned outsiders from Star Trek and Star Wars, the unnamed alien from Alien, and Spielberg’s ugly-beautiful E.T.

Cat didn’t mind that the inclusion of the slides made no sense.

What particularly intrigued Cat, were those adorable moments when—slip of the tongue?—Mike talked as though he had been up in the heavens himself.

And who said you couldn’t wear lemon patent leather crocodile boots with cobalt blue? It was all in how you rocked it.

Only at the end of the lecture, sequins on the cowboy suit twinkling like stars in the swaying spotlight, did Mike adopt a more serious tone.

Not only did aliens exist, Mike said, but it was possible, just possible ... that before the end of the year, a killer robot from outer space would destroy every living being in the universe.

The suggestion seemed oddly specific...

2

As the crowd filed back out into the corridors and hallways of the Astronave Hotel Complex and Conference Center in Nevada, Cat found herself wedged between a comic book fan dressed as a cardboard Dalek and a woman in a Blur T-shirt.

There was an incident up ahead, beyond where the corridor turned a narrow corner. The crowd wedged shoulder to shoulder. A woman nearby claimed she could hear the siren of an approaching ambulance in the distance.

The Dalek seemed in no mood for conversation. So Cat turned to the woman.

The band on her T-shirt were 1990s Britpop, Cat knew them from her adoptive mother’s scratched CD collection. Yet the woman looked to be in her late thirties. Maybe the band were still around. The Rolling Stones still toured, and they were ancient. That, Cat thought, or the woman was retro.

Conversation was not Cat’s strong point. She had read somewhere that the way to make conversation was to offer a compliment.

Hey, I like your shoes. Are they, like, a Muslim thing?

I doubt it. I’m Christian.

Cat bit her lip.

Oh. And how is that working out?

I’m slipping at the moment, the woman said. Haven’t made it to church for a while. Addicted to, um, box-sets. Then she shook her head pitifully and said, You know, you really need to get out more.

Cat pulled up the cozy gray hood with the pink and gray pointy ears, hiding her strawberry blond hair.

She did need to get out more.

It just seemed that, the more time she spent with people, the more she opened her mouth and put her paw in it.

Cat decided to try again.

So what do you do? If you don’t mind me asking.

The woman smiled now.

I’m between jobs. I’ve been doing some research work for the TV current affairs broadcast journo Hamish Abernethy. That’s why I’m here. In the ’90s I was lead guitarist in a Britpop band, Tantrum. You won’t have heard of them.

The name meant nothing to Cat.

Tantrum is a cool name. Do you have tantrums, then?

Not since I was six.

That must have been eons ago.

The woman rolled her eyes.

Thank you for making me feel old. If you must know, I’m 43. Held out a hand, Jade Camara.

Camaro? Like the classic American car?

Camara, like the classic Indian surname. I’m British but my parents were born in India. At least, my father is from Bangalore. Mother walked out when I was four years old, I don’t know much about her. Left me a bouncy ball. Oh, and these mauve shoes, I guess she was pretty traditional.

I’m Caitlín. The couple who adopted me died when I was fifteen. Toppled off a boat. I was brought up in New York but I’m Irish. People say I sound Irish sometimes, and I have an Irish surname, O’Connell.

Some guy pushed past, headed back the way Cat and the woman had come. Muttered something about blood on the walls.

Cat grimaced. The crowd shuffled forwards.

I’m autistic, Cat told Jade. Well, everyone always tells me so.

Autistic? Sorry if this is a dumb question, but do you have a special skill?

Um. Cat wriggled her toes. I look good in flip-flops.

The question always irked Caitlín. Not because it was the obvious question to ask, but because the truth was that she didn’t have a special skill.

The worst of both worlds.

All that social awkwardness, and no magic power. It was like being a superhero, but with only the bad clothes and insomnia.

I like the cat costume, Cat, Jade said. I love cosplay. Not that I’d ever do it, she said, though she seemed to Cat uncertain about this. Who are you meant to be? Obviously you’re not Catwoman.

Cat frowned.

It’s not a costume. I always dress like this. I feel—I feel comfortable dressed as a cat. It’s sort of comforting. Maybe that’s why I go to comic book conventions. Most places I get laughed at. Shrugged, Then I have to go to bed early, to reset.

Reset? Is that an autism thing?

I guess it is. I lie in the dark, listen to music.

Jade grinned.

Don’t tell me. Cat Stevens, or The Stray Cats.

Cat adjusted the hood of the hoody.

Never heard of them. I’m into Muse.

Jade laughed.

Mews? I like you, Cat, you’re funny. Hey, have you seen the robot arm?

Robot arm?

You should go check it out.

The crowd started moving again. Backwards. Cat and Jade turned a one-eighty and moved with them.

A minute later, they heard someone yelling from behind.

That’s it. Don’t shove, no one is in any danger here. Make your way out the fire escape by the lecture hall and enjoy the rest of the convention. Don’t shove, keep moving...

It’ll be the winds, said a man in a Super Mario costume. Blew something against the door. His girlfriend, dressed as Pac-Man, said something Cat couldn’t hear, and the man said, Blood? There isn’t any blood. Just some stuff blew against the door.

Jade said to Cat, That sounds about right. It’s windy as hell out there.

The last winds, Cat decided, of the late summer storm.

3

A man dressed head to heel in tinfoil held the door. Three teenaged Princess Leias, several Reys and Mara Jades and an Aayla Secura giggled as she passed.

Were they giggling at Caitlín? Because her outfit wasn’t cool?

Cat shrugged it off.

What mattered was that she was off to see the robot arm the woman in the Modern Life is Rubbish T-shirt and blue jeans and flat satin pumps had said was awesome.

Mike had joked about a killer robot from outer space at the end of the lecture. Cat thought of the quip with a smirk.

The hotel was a sparkling building out back of the conference center. Cat passed through the 50 yards of harsh sunlight and deadly shadows to the metallic archway that lead into the hotel. A bellboy doffed his cap.

Room 2763, Jade had told her as they waved goodbye.