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London sprawled below, a frantic network of people on the go. His followers
followed his pointing finger. ‘Eight million fools, rushing around,’ he said. ‘And that’s only what the eye can see. Thousands more, travelling in underground trains, and hundreds up there.’ He cast his crooked finger up towards the aeroplanes circling Heathrow, waiting for their turn to touch down.
    The Past Master knew that Project GoD was aiming higher than the clouds. He looked up into the evening sky. ‘Soon the stars will be twinkling,’ he said. ‘And that’s where we’ll be aiming, team. Project GoD, Phase Two. We’re ready to go.’
    It was dusk, the fading sun reflecting off Western Europe’s tallest building. London buzzed below as the Past Master pressed a button and the north-facing roof of the Shard glided open.
    The pensioners settled down to watch. ‘It doesn’t look like a time machine,’ suggested Donald, peering through his varifocals. ‘I was expecting something like the Tardis.’
    The Past Master chuckled. ‘That’s because nobody’s ever invented a time machine,’ he explained. ‘The Tardis isn’t real, Donald. But this is.’
    ‘But wasn’t
Doctor Who
better in the olden days?’ interrupted Gladys. ‘When the Doctor was in black and white.’
    ‘Ooh yes,’ agreed Una. ‘It’s all
crash, bang, wallop
nowadays. I haven’t got a clue what’s going on. They’ve even changed the theme tune. And the old Doctor didn’t used to have a sonic screwdriver …’
    ‘Well, this particular time machine doesn’t work like the Tardis,’ interrupted the Past Master. ‘I’ve used my intellectual genius to rethink what time machines should look like. So, ladies and gents, quiet, please.’
    The old man stood by the contraption. At the bottom it had something that looked like a lawnmower engine. Various pipes and tubes fed upwards to a rotating ball.
Almost exactly like a glittery disco ball
, he marvelled,
except the glittery parts are diamonds
.
    His fingers were too arthritic to cross so he made a wish in his head instead. He turned to his elderly audience. ‘Energy,’ he began.
    ‘I remember that,’ rasped Albert from the back.
    ‘The science is simple,’ beamed the Past Master. ‘Diamonds are the toughest element
on the planet. Almost impossible to destroy. I’ve been experimenting with heating them to unbelievable temperatures. While most other materials just disintegrate, I’ve found that diamonds merely keep heating up and that this heat can be focused.’ He patted the contraption. ‘And, once the energy is focused, it can be directed to a target and that target will go
boom
.’

    His audience gasped and Margaret’s backside let out a squeak of wind in excitement. ‘Whoops, excuse me,’ she chuckled. ‘Mrs Windy Pops.’
    ‘We’ve taken out Wales,’ continued the Past Master, his brand-new teeth shining too whitely for an eighty-year-old. ‘Now it’s Scotland’s turn to go back in time.’ The assembled crowd of old people had fallen silent, their cups returned to their saucers, their tongues and Margaret’s backside taking a well-earned rest. This was their moment.
    The Past Master knew that timing was everything. Modern communication relied on hundreds of satellites that circled the earth. Eventually his sparkly glitter ball would take out the whole of the European Union, but he’d
have to wait for the satellites to be aligned. ‘I mean,’ he chuntered, as he applied a last squirt of oil to the machine, ‘we shouldn’t even have joined the European Union in the first place. They keep making us change things! And it’s about time we changed them back.’
    He knew that Satellite SD6577 beamed data to and from Scotland. He’d nicknamed it the ‘McSatellite’. He’d calculated the orbit and knew that it was nearly in range. Scotland was about to lose all satellite communication.
Without McSatellite, Scotland will have no Internet. No mobile phones. No Wi-Fi. No