A Future Cold and Bleak

Traveling at an accelerated speed through time is quite a strange sensation, as Jessie and Norman would readily support if you asked them. Somewhere in between the year 1991 (Dot years) and 2939, the three travelers sped along in their inter-dimensional machine to meet what adventures awaited them once time was allowed to resume its natural rate. In the in-between, however, there was time enough still for conversation.
“Why didn’t Captain Myghxz come along?” asked Norman Bufort, bracing himself as Time itself whizzed by. “Well, you see,” replied Dr. Pea, “the reason I asked you two to come along in the first place was because the confounded alien was disinterested in time-travel from the start. Strangely enough, he found a study of dung beetles to be more appealing.” Dr. Pea adjusted the machine’s controls as he prepared to enter the year 2393. “As you know, this machine travels across dimensions. Therefore, I must warn you that, while I am certain at what time we shall emerge, I am uncertain as to exactly where in space we will emerge. It will not be far from our position in The Present, but I doubt it will be exactly the same. Oh, and prepare for a bit of a surprise—a lot has changed in 948 years.”
As he finished these words, time began to slow down to its natural flow. They emerged from the time portal in an ice-covered land. Without warning, however, the time-machine suddenly dropped, the hot energy of time-travel having melted a hole in the icy surface of a frozen pond on which they had landed. Dr. Pea and Jessie quickly hopped out into a nearby bank of snow, but Norman was stuck inside. The time-machine began to sink in the icy waters. Norman fell into the freezing pond and began flailing his arms, trying to grab hold of the broken ice, but there was nothing to grasp. Dr. Pea looked around frantically and saw a frozen stick. He pulled at it and with a lurch it came free of ice and into his hands. Quickly, he extended the stick to Norman and pulled him out, just as the time-machine sank beneath the surface of the frigid waters. Norman shivered terribly, but the worst was over.
Just then, the stick began to talk. “Hey! Did I just save that guy?”
“Well, you were notably instrumental in his rescue,” replied Dr. Pea.
“Okay, neat. Hey, has anyone seen my friend? He’s a leaf, and—oh! There he is, frozen in that block of ice! Well, whaddya know!?”
As Jessie tended to Norman, Dr. Pea helped the stick (who’s name was Xylem, naturally) unfreeze his little leaf friend. “Yes,” said the stick, “it is quite odd how we ended up frozen. All I remember is floating along the bank of this pond, and then suddenly feeling very cold—and it wasn’t even winter! The last thing I saw was a very large worm and then…ice.”
“Hmm…” mused Dr. Pea, “It seems you were cryogenically frozen some many years before now—but the worm?” He thought to himself, “It couldn’t be…”
“Did you hear that, Phloem?” said the stick to the recently freed leaf, “we were genetically frozen!”
Dr. Pea shook his head and turned to Norman and Jessie.
“We’re stuck here, aren’t we?” asked Jessie.
“Only until I figure out how to build another time-machine,” replied Dr. Pea, “in the meantime, I’m going to build a fire.”
Jessie and Norman decided to walk around some so that Norman could warm up (as much as possible). They began to recognize certain familiar features of the landscape, which struck them as odd since almost 1,000 years had passed. Then a sight met their eyes that stopped them in their tracks. There, in a large block of crystal clear ice, was Norman’s house just as he had left it, with Marcus standing by Martin’s tower of Xenon canisters…completely frozen.
Norman and Jessie ran back to Dr. Pea and told them what they had seen. Dr. Pea sat by his glowing fire and began to think aloud.
“Yes…hm…the worm…yes…A-HA!! It seems that the space-worm which Mr. Burton sent to the year 2009 has taken over our planet! Dot is frozen because the worm has manipulated the temperature to fit its natural habitat—the icy-cold of space!” “But what about Marcus!?” Norman yelled, “He’s frozen! And that was in The Present, not 2009!”
“Unless the worm somehow made it back to 1991…” said Jessie.
“I do not know about that,” replied Dr. Pea, “all I know is that the only way this can be undone rests in the year 2009 at the exact moment when that worm followed Mr. Burton on the time-machine. We must go back to that point and destroy the worm before it can unleash its horrible winter.”
“But we don’t have a time-machine! And how do we even know it was that worm—”
“RUUUUUUN!” Norman’s unfinished question was immediately answered by the mysterious, four-armed man with a bug-like face running towards them. Right on his heels were the snarling jaws of a gigantic space-worm much more vicious-looking than the one Norman had encountered before. Without pausing to think, the three time-travelers joined the frantic pace of the bug-man. He led them straight to a gaping hole of energy and yelled, “Quick, jump in!”
“But that’s a worm-hole, my man!” screamed Dr. Pea, “That’s where those things live!!” “You have to trust me!!!” he replied. Norman took Jessie by the hand and they both leapt into the center of the worm-hole. Dr. Pea, though hesitant, dove in after them. The bug-man turned to the worm, put up his four arms as if to stop the horrible creature, and quickly dove into the hole himself just before it closed and left the gaping jaws behind.