by Sean McMahon
The three of them knew he was referring to the far more likely reality that he would remain comatose. Though for how long was anyone’s guess.
‘Wait!’ said Hal. ‘I almost forgot! Yo, Future Me? Pump the breaks, we need a bit longer.’
His future-self looked up from the huddled discussion he, Ava and Ross were engaging in, nodding curtly before returning to whatever it was time travellers from the future discussed in their down time.
“Phase 10 of the MCU probably,” thought Hal, certain he’d cracked it.
He slid off his backpack and dropped it to the floor, squatting down as he unzipped it, rummaging around with urgency. ‘Come on, come on you bastard, where are ya?’ he muttered.
‘Hal, what are you–’
‘False alarm! Found it!’ he said, revealing a mini-bar sized bottle of alcohol and standing back up to attention.
‘You didn’t?’ said Kara, laughing at her ridiculous friend.
‘Oh, I did,’ said Hal, dispensing his classic wink that suited him just fine.
He removed the tiny cap and discarded it onto the shingle, where it landed soundlessly.
‘A toast,’ Hal declared, raising the bottle. ‘To life and death…’ he took a swig and passed the tiny tequila to Kara.
‘To tequila!’ she added, taking a gulp, and to Malcolm’s surprise leaving enough behind for him to join them.
She held out her arm, offering him the bottle.
‘I…don’t drink,’ said Malcolm, utterly taken aback by their willingness to include him.
‘Don’t ruin the moment, Malc’,’ said Hal, a playful scowl dancing across his face.
Malcolm took the bottle, smiled at it, then at them.
‘To time travel,’ he quipped, downing the remaining mouthful and hiding his disgust at the aftertaste like the veteran chameleon he was.
‘I’d apologise for doubting you,’ said Kara, ‘but you don’t make it fucking easy, man.’
Malcolm chuckled. ‘It has been said.’ Ophelia had always criticised him for that. ‘Despite what you may think of me, it’s important to me that you know this; I am…not the man I once was. A by-product of our time together, I expect. Something about you both has a nasty way of…rubbing off on people.’
‘Does that mean you’re going to stop…well…killing people?’ asked Hal.
‘Baby steps, Harold. Baby steps,’ said Malcolm with a wink that looked more like he was having some form of brain malfunction.
‘Not very committal,’ Hal mumbled.
Malcolm stared at them, as if wanting to say more. And in truth he did want to, but couldn’t bring himself to let the words out. How he had grown fond of them. Protective of them. Even proud of them, in his own contorted Malcolmy sort of way.
‘Farewell, Restarters,’ he said, stepping away from them and notifying Hal’s future-self he was ready via the medium of a deliberate nod. Malcolm began making his way back to the front door of Kevin’s cabin, eager to check what condition his past-self’s condition was in, his back to them as he did so. ‘And should we meet again…’ he added.
‘You’ll spare us and never try to kill us again, right?’ Hal said hopefully.
Malcolm stopped at the threshold, dipping his head to the left, but not looking back.
‘Malcolm?’ pressed Kara. ‘You’ll leave us alone, right? Our families? Friends?’
Malcolm looked back into the darkness of the cabin in front of him.
‘I was going to say; stay out of my way, and I’ll do my best to stay out of yours.’
And on that menacing note, he vanished into the shadows.
‘Classic Malcolm,’ said Hal. ‘All righty then. How do we do this thing? Click our heels? Swallow a red pill? Shout Shazam?’
Future Hal gave the go ahead to Ross, who faffed about on his tablet in a dramatic manner, causing Kara to wonder if he was just milking it to look the part.
‘Do you think he’s just dragging that out to look the part?’ Hal whispered to Kara.
‘Definitely.’
‘I can hear you,’ said Ross curtly.
‘Would you like some cornflakes to go with all that milk?’ said Kara, Ava’s eyes lighting up and laughing an inch away from Ross’s face.
‘She got you, man,’ said the red-jacketed livewire.
‘Catch you on the flip side,’ said Hal turning to face Kara, moving in close so there was barely any space between them. ‘You wanna hold hands for this or...?’
He was expecting her to tell him to man up, and was surprised when she took his hands in hers. They both noted the lack of electrical feedback between them. Presumably a side effect of the TDA’s.
‘Sure,’ she said with a smile. ‘So, Time Cops huh? Who’d have thunk it?’
With a pop of air, the triangulating generators cut out, ending both Hal and Kara’s conversation as well as the sweet spot of dilated time.
The de-molecularisation process of their bodies now unimpeded, Time arrived promptly, angrily efficient in its eagerness to reclaim them
And, amidst little more than a flash of blue light, they vanished.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-FOUR
The Consequence
Saturday, August 25th, 2018,
9:28pm
Future Hal, who could once again be referred to as just “Hal”, pulled back the cuff of his shirt and jacket, stealing a glance at his watch; simplistic in design, but secretly being the only thing that kept him from exploding into a billion blue shards.
‘Great work everyone. First Contact went as well as we could have hoped.’
In truth, he had assumed it would have taken much longer than it did. Mere minutes, instead of hours. Hours they didn’t have.
‘Are you sure this is a good idea,’ said Ross for the billionth time. ‘Bringing them into this…it’s…’
‘Risky. Yes. You’ve said that before. I know what I’m doing. You need to trust me, Ross.’
‘It’s just,’ said Ava, licking her lips quickly as if her next words were forbidden. ‘You were kiiinda told not to, is all.’
‘Ava…’
‘And by kinda, I mean you were explicitly instructed by UNTAC to do the complete opposite of that.’
She was right of course. He had only been allowed to come back here, to this time, under the double-edged proviso that he left Brexit the hell alone, and that under no circumstances whatsoever was he to engage with his past self.
And especially not Kara.
And definitely not Malcolm.
Research and report, whilst the singularities were in their infancy and burning bright enough that their point of origin could be catalogued and timestamped. Only then would a decision be made.
The political implications were forever hindered not so much by red tape, as they were by cast-iron gates with angry barbed wire, every contemplated action analysed from every conceivable angle so that the ultimate consequences could be categorised into three distinct grades; Blue, Red, and Green.
“Ad infinitum,” thought Hal irritably.
‘It was numero uno on the “things not to do” list that we signed to even get here is all I’m sayi–’
‘Ava! The theorists at UNTAC have no idea what’s truly at stake here. I told them what they needed to hear to get us when we needed to be. By the time we get back they won’t even be aware of what they made us sign.’
Ava nodded, noting the resentment in the way he said “theorists”, then smiled. Hal returned the gesture with shared contempt before she asked the question he knew was coming.
‘Are you going to tell her?’
There it was. Hal played dumb. ‘Tell who what?’
‘You know who and what,’ said Ava with a look of worry.
‘She can’t know. Not yet, at least.’
‘She’s going to find out one way or another,’ said Ava warningly. ‘Especially now you’ve decided to bring them in on this. It just feels kind of…out of order not telling her, you know?’
‘Ava may hav
e a point,’ said Ross, stealing a look away from his trusty tablet. ‘Maybe it would be better coming from you?’
‘Enough,’ said Hal. ‘Everybody dies, Ava. Even us. We’re all immortal until proven otherwise. Knowing the when and where…it’s no way to live.’
‘But not everybody is in a position to prevent it,’ she contested. ‘I know what she meant to you.’
Hal tensed, deflecting her words by shutting down his feelings, just like always. ‘And that’s the problem. If we tell her, she’ll undoubtedly tell the younger version of myself. And he’ll do everything in his power to change the future to save her. I have mourned her passing. Just like my younger self will when it happens.’
‘That’s kinda cold boss. And you don’t know that past-you will go against what you say. He has no reason not to trust you. Unless you make one…’
‘It is what it is; History. And I know that’s what he’d do because it’s exactly what I would have done back then. He’d sooner destroy time itself than let one of his friends take a bullet. Especially Kara.’
‘Then why bring them in at all,’ argued Ross. ‘If none of this happened in your own past, why are you forcing it?’
‘You know why,’ he said simply, feeling that they had spent far too long discussing this out in the open already. It was neither the time, nor the place. ‘And on our next first contact, please don’t call me boss in front of potential candidates, Ava. It sets a derogatory precedent.’
‘Bridge is ready, boss,’ said Ross.
‘Excellent. Take us home.’
‘Why is it okay for him to say it? said Ava, full of sulk.
‘Can we please just return to the Shire?’
‘It’s because of mum isn’t it.’
‘No,’ Hal replied. Even though it was.
The darkened doorway of Kevin’s lodge was replaced with a bright green shimmering portal of light, the shadows beyond now filled with what the three of them knew to be work stations.
Hal’s future-self took the lead, walking directly through the gateway that led to their base of operations, his blue jacket appearing green from the other side of the threshold, as he made his way to his office on the top level.
Rolling her eyes at her uncle’s inability to open up to her, she stood on the edge of their current side of the bridge to what they now referred to as home, glancing over her shoulder at Ross.
‘Don’t forget to kill the turds,’ she said, her crude nickname for the TDA’s that she knew her colleague hated.
‘Such a backseat Restarter,’ Ross muttered under his breath, but ensuring it was loud enough for Ava to hear.
She hopped around to face him like an overexcited rabbit, her back to the portal they had created, before flicking him the double bird, and jumping backwards hundreds of miles and landing on the other side in a blink of an eye.
Ross breathed a sigh, a rustle in the trees drawing his attention away from the gateway separating the mind-boggling distance between Pentney Lakes and the Shire, that was now pressed together by a mere few inches of folded space.
He’d been doing this for long enough to know when something felt off.
It was something of a gift.
The time traveller cycled through the filters built into his glasses, slow deliberate clicks throwing the empty road that connected the countless lodges into varying hues of translucence.
Clicking from blue, to red, to green, to white, and black, before switching the perception-altering specs off entirely, the real world reverting to its moonlit default.
The surroundings remained undisturbed.
Nothing.
He huffed, berating himself for getting so spooked for no reason. A side-effect of always being the last one to leave the scene. They had prepared for everything, and today’s encounter went far smoother than even he had dared to hope.
There was nothing here but the living, and the Malcolm beneath his feet in a state of simulated death.
Ross shuddered at the thought as he gathered his things. Positioning himself on the cusp of the doorway, he entered the Kill command on his laptop before walking through the portal back to The Shire.
The bridge in space-time closed behind him, air rushing in to fill the void it left behind. In his wake, the Time Dilation Amplifiers ignited, their power-cores set to self-destruct, causing them to disintegrate, removing any trace they were ever there at all as the green embers dissolved into the night sky.
*
As pliable time stabilised into a concrete constant, the surroundings remained entirely unaffected, until the stillness of the evening was interrupted with a crackle, heralding the arrival of a small tear in the fabric of reality.
A hand reached through the breach, black as oil and just as slick, causing the splinter between universes to widen, allowing for more of the creature’s body to make its way through; an arm, a torso, a leg, until eventually it had dragged its way to full freedom.
The creature looked up at the moon, its eyeless face seemingly drinking in its surroundings, taking sharp breaths in through what should have been its nostrils, but were instead quivering ripples of stretched flesh, before looking down at its hands.
With fervent curiosity, the figure twisted the object it had brought back with it; an equally slick, black blade that was an identical replica to what Malcolm had been so fond of.
Shoulders jerking, the Echo attempted a laugh, but it landed more like a shrill squeal. Growing bolder, it tried its hand at speaking. A gargled mess of syllables putting to rest the question of if a tree falling in the woods could be heard at all if no one was around to hear it.
‘aaaaarrrraaaaaK.’
The creature jerked its neck unnaturally, focusing on the bright light pulsing from the rupture in time behind him, feeling intense elation that he was now free of the nexus beyond, its maw opening to reveal shark like teeth which formed a horrifying smile, as another hand clutching a blade forced its way through.
Followed by another.
And another.
*
The army of Echoes juddered their way through the night towards the boundary line of Pentney Lakes, a blend of nightmarish horror wearing a scarf of ridiculousness. They had no power to draw on, so were forced to take each step at a time, like a Butlins holiday-retreat tribute act on their first practice run of Michael Jackson’s “Thriller”.
Indeed, it was fortunate Hal wasn’t around to witness it, given that he would have chosen that as the soundtrack to what was unfolding.
The Thriller rejects continued onwards until reaching the Restart Point, the first of them to make it through to the realm of the living taking point as the others stopped for a moment, willingly allowing their self-appointed leader to claim the title on the basis he would shortly cease to exist anyway.
It raised its blade, jabbing it into the point of no return – or more accurately, the point of infinite returns – slicing the black knife across the barrier.
Cocking its head in wonder, it continued onwards through the barrier, which rippled against the being’s presence, but allowed safe passage all the same.
Breaking through the temporal mesh of former incarceration, a red energy flowed along the surface of its hideous body as it marched onwards.
And its brothers followed.
A squadron of serial killers unleashed.
An army of Dark Restarters unbound.
With even time itself unwilling, or perhaps unable, to stop them.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-FIVE
Time Cop
Sunday, August 26th, 2018, 10:06am.
Stephanie Hawthorne was assessing the circus playing out in front of her through the faint haze of steam that curled out from the slit of the lid in her coffee cup.
She’d asked for it to go.
Always to go.
Occupational necessity.
The morning sun lashed against her fair skin, but she still held the cup with both hands, revelling in the unspoken glory that came from the rarity of
having access to caffeine that wasn’t at best lukewarm and at worst tepid.
She leant against the police van she’d hitched a ride in, watching as armed police officers raided the too-quaint-to-be-threatening log cabin, and continued to do so as a young constable jogged back, requesting a gurney be brought in for a body they needed to relocate.
A body, if the rumours were to be true, that belonged to the serial killer she had been hunting for the past 6 years after the case had been passed to her by her father.
