“Before you think about going back out there, I’ll try to explain a few more things to you,” John said, as he sat down beside her and handed her a plate of what appeared to be some form of meat. “Lets call them… Rules of the Road. Now, Doc could go on explaining things to you, but he really should get busy on the still. Besides, he has a tendency to go on a bit, which might side track you from the important details. So here are the things you need to remember. Your very presence, in places you don’t belong, will inevitably attract your Paradox. So never get to comfortable anywhere, and try not to out stay your welcome.”

“Of course, younger ones tends ta take longer ta catch the scent,” Doc added. “But the more ya feed it, the stronger it gets.”

“feed it?” Kit asked.

“What doc means is, the more you disrupt time, the easier it is for it to track you. Or something along those lines,” John tried to explain. “Its not like any of us really know how it works, but we have theories based on shared experiences. I guess you could think of it as a kind of Time Lore. Anyway, try not to interact with things, or creatures, you don’t need to. And definitely stay away from other people as much as possible. At least unless you intend to be making a Jump real soon. Don’t stand out if you can manage it, the last thing you want is a lot of people talking about you. When we take things, we try and take those things which others might not miss, things that will have the least impact on people or the future. It helps to know a little about the future of an area if possible, something we call Time Scouting. That’s one of the main reasons we share stories about our travels.”

“The simplest way to explain all this, is to think of it in terms of cause and effect,” Rose chimed in. “You see, you don’t want to be the cause of an effect which was never supposed to happen… the catalyst for change. Because you’re not even supposed to exist in that place and time. The more immediate your impact on the timeline, the more obvious it is, the greater the danger. It draws them to us, like a strong scent. So don’t save anybodies life, or take anybodies life, or they’ll appear almost immediately. That’s basically the worst thing you could do. And don’t leave an impression on anyone, never tell them anything that could change the course of their lives. Or make yourself too memorable.”

“Don’t be too strange, don’t standout, basically don’t be too interesting… and if you think anyone has taken an interest in you, just jump,” Eddy continued. It was his turn to contribute, and besides, he wanted Kit’s attention back. “The best thing you can do is stay ahead of them, but if you see a Paradox… run, keep jumping until you lose them. If you have to fight to get away, to slow them down, use something out of time. anything from the time you’re present in is useless.”

“Why?” Kit asked curious to find out more about the possibility of fighting the monsters.

“Don’t get any ideas,” Eddy said, “I know that look. You can’t fight them, not really. Any damage they take is temporary, they just reform. Plus, it destroys the weapon you use. See, anything native to the present time, local time, might as well be air. It can’t hurt a Paradox, and a Paradox can’t hurt it. They just pass right through, like its not even there. But anything out of time, well those things are what the Paradox devours. Contact with such things results in some type of disintegration, like the area of the object in contact with the Paradox, just ceases to exist. but that probably doesn’t make any sense until you see it happen. The thing is, the rate of disintegration seems to be based on the strength of the Paradox, and maybe there are other factors we don’t really understand yet. But what it means is, if you can hit one fast enough and hard enough, you can cause it to sort of disperse a bit. or something like that. And then you run, drop the weapon and run. They’ll usually finish devouring it before they continue chasing you. They don’t like to leave that kind of mess behind. Not that it takes long to finish what they started.”

“I see,” Kit said, with a little less hope in her voice.

“Anyway, we can stay here for awhile, even in a group like this. We think most of us come from a time before this one. Because of the sick feeling, and Doc’s say so… seeing as he’s been around awhile. He scouted this area, observed the people and such,” John explained. “Still we may be pretty close to Eddy’s time, or so he thinks… Though thinking’s not always his strong suit,” John teased.

“Hey, watch it…” Eddy replied, only half paying attention at this point. He was eating, with his knives. Playing about with them, as he did so. He seemed to be showing off a bit, to impress Kit with a display of his skills. He was like a bird, displaying his feathers to a potential mate.

Maybe this was a turn of good fortune, she thought, all things considered. Things had been insane before she ran into John, and she probably could have been killed back then, or like erased or something. But now she seemed to have friends, companions, maybe a family. She wasn’t sure about all this, but she wasn’t really sure about anything at the moment. I mean, she didn’t really know herself any better than any of them. She nodded at John, thinking that Eddy wasn’t too bad either… kinda cute maybe. Ironically perhaps, she felt like she might just have time to figure all this out, and if nothing else, she wouldn’t be alone doing it.