...grabbed him. Then, as they were hurtling through time to a safer place to have a word with Caesar, they suddenly realised who was missing.
"Oh NO!" cried Snake. "Where's Anton?"
And suddenly they realised he was back in Ancient Rome.
"Our guide! Now we're lost in time! Uz, when you dialed in the instructions on the time machine did you know what you were doing?" asked Georgio Gambino.
"Uhhh...in a sense....well...no."
"Oh dear." said everyone including Caesar who was now getting out his own dagger ready to stab himself in fear. Shortcake stopped him.
"Where are we headed?" cried Saladabar.
And soon they found out. The time machine landed and they found themselves on a barren, lifeless land. There was nothing but foggy stars and dull dirt with bits of rock sticking out everywhere. Caesar stepped out and when he did he floated up, up, up, mimicking a scream with no sound, then they all grimaced as his head exploded and his body went limp. It continued floating.
"I know where and when we are." said Turnbull absentmindedly and sadly. "We're on Earth." They all gasped.
"We must be in the year 3000 or something!" said The Italian Stallionette.
"No." said Turnbull immediately. "According to the time machine we're in May 2002." They all stood wide-eyed and nobody said anything.
"My bet," said Turnbull after 2 minutes, "is that the world has been destroyed by nuclear warheads, by war, by whatever. And now nothing is left. This is 2 months after the date we left, and somewhere between that all life has come to a stop because of war."
"Then we must stop it happening." said Capo de la Cosa Nostra. "We must go back in time to stop them fighting."
So they closed the hatch on the time machine and set the dial for MARCH 2002. They all sat in a shocked silence as they hurtled back 3 months to stop it happening...

-Penguin (oh THAT'S what the code of the hammurabai is, we'd be better off with the Ten Commandments or the Declaration of Independence.)