The Loopholes of Time (Chapter 6)

## A New Twist

**WARNING: THE FOLLOWING STORY MAY HAVE CHANGED DUE TO INTERFERENCE IN THE TIMELINES.**

The elections had come and gone, all the votes had been cast; the campaign had been a dirty battle right to the bitter end. And what a bitter end it had been, the Mayor wasn’t re-elected. Introducing democracy, he reflected, was the worst decision he could’ve made. And it wasn’t even real democracy, because certain influential town officials had been paid off, effectively rigging the vote. He’d been a shoe-in to hold the seat of power for another term. How, after all that careful planning, had he still managed to lose?

He watched his successor take to the podium, his eyes like daggers, mentally stabbing that upstart Ms.

Burrita José as she thanked the public for their “wise decision” choosing “reason over adversity.”

Shocked, disgusted and feeling betrayed by the citizens of his, his! city, the freshly deposed mayor left the electoral ceremony and slunk away into the shadows. And for a time, he was forgotten.

With the stage now to herself, Burrita laid out her plans to unite the eight districts; OldTown, TrenchTown, Mayfair Avenue, Barrio Loco, ChinaTown, DownTown, Whistlers Green and the KidzTown into one harmonious whole that would restore BoomTown to its former glory! They would “pull together”, a “veil of mutual understanding and recreation” would descend on BoomTown, and the community would “blossom into a single entity of solidarity” that would be celebrated, in outstanding splendor at the next annual fair.

In the days following her rise to power, Burrita wasted no time in planning the festivities for BoomTown Fair. Everything had to be perfect! Her first order of business was to invite all BoomTown residents to undergo a Citizenship Test at the Town Hall. Perhaps not everyone’s cup of tea, but by doing so, Burrita believed it would help to gel the community together and result in everyone looking after the city and each other.

She would celebrate her inauguration with an elaborate carnival snaking its way through each district of the city, so that every member of the community could bask in its magnificence, this would be a good year!

The ex-Mayor of BoomTown had been outwitted, outfoxed. He’d given everything to this city, his heart, his very soul! And for what?!? To be ousted by that uppity “Queen of the Latin Quarter”?

No longer able to skim off the city’s finances he was destitute and homeless. He tried to loan money from The Bank of Mayfair, he was refused. He joined a backstreet game of poker in Charlie Browns Casino in DownTown, he became indebted. He tried to drink himself silly on scrumpy, he succeeded!

The next morning the ex-mayor found himself in a dumpster in DownTown. He’d hit rock bottom; the absolute pits! He felt betrayed by every human being in this god-forsaken city. With a crumpled can of scrumpy in hand, the ex-mayor turned to the only life forms he could trust, he headed straight to the Arcadia Spider Alien Mothership.

Persuasion, a skill he’d been honing for years, managed to wangle him a meeting with the Queen alien.

She asked of the ex-mayor, “what brings a man such as yourself before us humble aliens?”

He didn’t hesitate and asked if there was any conceivable way to be sent back to the past, back when things were good, when the town was prosperous, and when he was powerful and content; back to the Wild West where he could muster a loyal and true following. The Queen confided in the ex-mayor that this farfetched fantasy was indeed, very much possible!

Using their superior technology hidden deep within the Arcadia Spider, he would be able to go back to any point since the inception of BoomTown and temporarily have the power to forever alter the city’s history!

The ex-mayor wanted to go back to the beginning, shortly after the vast vein of gold had been discovered, after the first mines had just opened, when the wellsprings that are the lifeblood of BoomTown had started pumping.

The Alien Queen issued him a warning that he had only a matter of hours to achieve his goal, she ushered him through a mysterious passageway deep within the Spider’s belly… He followed a winding path that took him up and up, ever higher for what seemed like an eternity! Then all of a sudden, the ground began to swell, the walls began to shudder and he was violently flipped and flung, forwards and backwards, round and round at a nauseating speed whirling round in a hazy spinning of nothing and everything! Then, with an eerie silence and as abruptly as the whirlpool had started, everything stopped. After a few moments, he gathered himself and dared to open an eye… Crikey those Aliens were good! He had arrived!!! The past was his to conquer…

## The Wild West

Within his very limited time-frame, he knew that the only way to achieve his goal to reclaim the city was to bring in an outside influence to remain with the budding city until the present day. Then he could once again seize control of BoomTown’s streets and command the respect that he’d been so unjustly stripped of!

He set off to the west, out into the back and beyond where he stumbled upon a small shanty town that would look right at home in an old John Wayne movie. The nameless hodgepodge of tenements was an isolated community rife with poverty. Its scant population comprised opportunistic outlaws led by a ruthless Sheriff who went by the name Calamity Bane. The ex-mayor told Bane of the BoomTown to the east, of the recently constructed gold mines and the wealth that was flowing from them. He told Bane of the grand city BoomTown would be in years to come, and that to get a slice of that golden pie, he would have to move east, and annex his lawless community to the rapidly growing town. Suffice to say, the ex-mayor’s seemingly supernatural foresight was met with skepticism. He used all his skills of persuasion, and eventually a bargain was struck: If everything came true, and Bane and his band of outlaws prospered off the back of BoomTown’s gold rush, the ex-mayor would be able to call on their aid anytime he found himself in trouble.

Just after sealing the deal with a rigorous handshake, the ex-mayor’s time was up and he was unceremoniously whisked out of the Old West by powers beyond his comprehension, hurtled through the time portal and spat out in an unfamiliar present-day BoomTown! Finding his bearings in the present, he noticed the bearded gunslingers with cowboy hats prowling the streets. He followed them and soon discovered a suburban district that hadn’t existed before the aliens sent him back through time – Wild West Street.

As he ventured further into The Wild West, the success of his ruse unfolded before his eyes. Old school saloons were standing tall at regular intervals in between blacksmiths and gunsmiths stores, rickety stagecoaches were plodding past, a honkytonk piano could be heard over the clattering of shot glasses of a nearby watering hole. At the end of the dry and dusty street was a huge, imposing saloon bearing the name ‘Crazy Calamities’. Standing in the doorway, as if he’d been waiting a lifetime, was a wizened Bane, ready to stick to the promise he made all those years before and finally hand over the Sheriff badge to its ‘rightful’ owner!

And so, just like that, the ex-mayor of BoomTown became the renegade Sheriff of the Wild West!

## The Day Of The Dead

Burrita José was blissfully unaware of these developments, she continued planning her carnival of dreams and spreading her message of community spirit. Her ignorance was gratifying, enjoyable even. A wry grin crept over the corners of his mouth as the new Sheriff planned his next move. It was a bold move, but what better way was there than to publicly humiliate Ms Burrita José at her own Fair? He would do it during her inauguration carnival with the whole city watching, when the blow would be felt at its hardest…

During Burrita's inauguration carnival the newly instated Sheriff and his followers from the Wild West held up and kidnapped José from her own parade!

Before celebrations had even finished that glorious day Comrade Jose was already in the darkest dungeons of the city and our ex-mayor was pinning on his Sheriff’s badge, smiling as he surveyed the scene of jubilation, now he would lead from the shadows, he had tired of public life and tedious civic duties anyway, this was much preferable, Comrade Jose would be a puppet in his hands, as would the rest of the population, as soon as he activated the strange machine that glowed in the corner of his office...

## Quests

This chapter's main quest was to obtain your official Boomtown Citizenship from the Town Hall.

## Navigation

* Return: The Official Story
* Previous Chapter
* Next Chapter

## References

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 https://web.archive.org/web/20140712052348/http://www.boomtownfair.co.uk/tourist-info/town-history/chapter-6-coming-soon-jan-16th
2. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0lziFX4-iM&feature=emb\_title
3. ↑ https://www.boomtownfair.co.uk/the-story/chapter-6-the-loopholes-of-time/