by Jason Ayres
Josh hadn’t forgotten the world he had once visited where nuclear war had kicked off and he was having to live with the likelihood that he had unintentionally caused it at some point.
As a compromise, Josh agreed to keep the experiments low-key and on a more local basis they could have more control over. He was fascinated by some of the characters he had encountered throughout his life and spent some travelling back in time to find out what made them tick.
When he did this he usually masqueraded as some sort of higher power, using Henry’s ever-sophisticated technology to appear in mirrors, as a hologram of the subject themselves, or in any shape or form he liked. One time he presented himself in the traditional white-robed, white-bearded image of God.
When he told Alice about it, thinking she would find it funny, he got quite the opposite response.
“What can you possibly have been thinking?” she asked.
“It’s just a bit of fun,” he said. “I thought my old RE teacher would appreciate it.”
“Why don’t you just go back to AD 30 and turn some water into wine and start Christianity while you are at it?” she said. “You know I just can’t believe you at times!”
“Look, whatever shape or form I take, it’s going to look like magic, isn’t it?” he countered. “Any advanced science looks like a miracle to those who can’t understand it.”
“Yes, but playing God? This power is seriously going to your head.”
“Alright, I’ll lose the robes and the beard,” he conceded.
“Good,” she replied. “And don’t ever do anything so irresponsible again.”
Suitably chastised, he went back to the lab and they continued to conduct small-scale experiments for a few more weeks. Then, one morning, Henry called him into the lab with a concerned look on his face.
“Josh, you need to come and have a look at this,” he said, bringing up a large holographic display in the middle of the room. It showed one large sphere with thousands of smaller spheres rotating around inside. They were packed in tightly in some parts, but there were other areas where there were a few small gaps in other places.
“What exactly is this?” he asked, having a hunch that it must be something to do with the multiverse.
“This is a representation of the multiverse as it stands today,” confirmed Henry. “It’s based on mapping every single universe that we’ve catalogued since we began this project.”
“Wow, that many,” said Josh. “There must be tens of thousands in there.”
“There are,” replied Henry. “64,211, to be precise. That’s what I want to talk to you about. I’m afraid I’ve discovered something extremely disconcerting.”
“What’s that?” asked Josh, feeling apprehensive.
“When we first started cataloguing the multiverse, we worked on the premise that the number of possible universes was infinite. However, it turns out this isn’t the case at all. You see this outer shell here?”
He pointed at the outside of the large sphere.
Josh nodded, and let Henry continue.
“That’s the outer shell of the multiverse. It’s a precise mathematical model capable of holding a fixed number of universes – in this case 2 to the power of 16, or in layman’s terms 65,536.”
“But you said there are already over 64,000,” replied Josh. “What happens when we reach the limit?”
“That’s the really scary part,” said Henry. “I ran some simulations last night. Look at this. Maisie, run simulation Henry 459.”
Josh watched as more spheres rapidly popped into the holographic model in front of him, filling in the remaining gaps in the structure. After about ten seconds the sphere was completely full, at which point there was a bright flash, like a firework exploding, which quickly faded. All that was left was a small, bright white dot in the centre like on an old-fashioned television set that had just been switched off.
“Do you realise what just happened?” asked Henry.
“It didn’t look good,” replied Josh.
“It wasn’t,” replied Henry. “This is what will happen if we fill the multiverse beyond capacity. Imagine it as being like blowing up a balloon until it pops.”
“You’re talking about the destruction of everything, everywhere,” exclaimed Josh, as the implications began to sink in.
“I know – scary, isn’t it? You know, this could be exactly what caused the original Big Bang. And if this simulation is correct it could easily happen again.”
“Great,” said Josh. “The charge sheet just keeps getting longer and longer. So now I’m going to be the man who caused the death not just of all life on Earth, but all life on every planet in every universe. I don’t think I can possibly top that.”
“It hasn’t happened yet,” said Henry. “And it won’t if we stop creating new universes.”
“Will that be enough, though? What if someone else discovers how to do what we’re doing? And it’s not like we can stop them. They might not even be on Earth. There must be millions of planets out there. What if someone out there in another galaxy is doing exactly what we’re doing?”
“Then we’re screwed,” replied Henry. “On a positive note, as far as I can tell, the only new universes that have been created are ones I can trace directly back to us, which suggests we are the only ones who can do this, at least at the moment.”
“OK, well, that’s a small crumb of comfort?” asked Josh. “But we certainly mustn’t create any more, so I guess this means no more time travel. That’s a great pity because I was enjoying sending people back to the past to see what they did. In fact, I just sent someone back to 1988 this morning. I suppose he’ll be the last one for now.”
“Not necessarily,” replied Henry. “I think I’ve found a workaround, but it’s not without implications of its own. Rather than explain it more than once, I think we need to get together with the girls and discuss it. Vanessa’s coming back from Australia today and will be here by mid-afternoon, so how about the four of us get together for dinner tonight?”
“Sounds like a plan,” said Josh. He knew that Alice wouldn’t be ecstatic, having endured a number of uncomfortable evenings in the company of Henry and Vanessa, but this was important.
Later that evening, the two couples met at a small, attractive French restaurant in Little Clarendon Street. The walls were filled with black and white prints of Paris in the early twentieth century and the mood was set by the traditional café-style music of the time.
After a little small talk over cocktails, they ordered their meals from the middle-aged waiter dressed smartly in the restaurant’s white shirt and bow tie theme. He was also sporting a rather impressive moustache that wouldn’t have been out of place in the period the restaurant was attempting to re-create.
As he took their orders he spoke in an exaggerated French accent that reminded Josh of the over-the-top accents he had seen on the ancient sitcom, ’Allo ’Allo, when he had been living in 1992.
At every opportunity the waiter would say things like “zee” instead of “the”, even though he was clearly every bit as English as Josh and Alice were.
While they waited for their starters, Henry outlined the current problem to the others.
“Let me just see if I’ve got this right,” said Vanessa. “You’re saying that we can’t keep going back like we have been because we’ll cause the annihilation of the entire universe?”
“And all the other universes as well, it seems,” added Alice. “It looked like you’re going to have to forget about your plans for time travel tourism.”
She couldn’t help feeling a little smug and tried not to let it show. Her dislike of Vanessa and her money-obsessed ways had been growing progressively stronger every day since she had met the woman.
“Do you have any idea how much money I’ve invested in this?” fumed Vanessa. “I can’t believe you didn’t see this coming, Henry. And what about our plans to extend our lives by going back in time? Are you saying that’s all up in
smoke, too?”
“Not necessarily,” said Henry. “We still have a good thousand or so universes to play with. There’s no reason we and our close family and friends couldn’t do what we originally planned when the time comes. But as far as extending it to all and sundry, that’s a non-starter.”
“Josh said you had a possible workaround, though,” said Alice.
“I do,” said Henry.
“Right, let’s hear it,” said Vanessa belligerently. “And it had better be good.”
“It harks back to something Josh said to me when he initially told me about his travels through time,” explained Henry. “Josh, you used the analogy of making a backup of a file on a computer and giving it a slightly different name, and that’s how the new universes get created.”
“It was a good analogy, I thought,” said Josh.
“It was – and it gave me a related idea which I’ve now managed to test in practice. There are three options you can use when you save a file. You can save over the top, save as a different name, then there’s the third option.”
“Merge?” asked Josh.
“Precisely,” said Henry. “It gives you the option to merge the existing file into the old one, including the changes.”
“That’s what we need to start doing to stop creating any new universes. Then we can continue with the work,” said Vanessa. “Can you do it?”
“It’s not that different to what we’re doing now,” said Henry. “I’ve figured out how to do this and fed the information into the tachyometer this afternoon. There’s no reason why we can’t trial it right away.”
“But if we do that, then we get into all the implications of changing history,” said Josh. “We could screw up our own universe.”
“Therein lies the problem,” said Henry. “And this is why I suggest from now on that trips into the past are kept to a bare minimum, or preferably none at all. Time travel should be only allowed for the gravest of emergencies.”
“I can’t believe how much time and money I’ve wasted on this,” said Vanessa. “And on you, come to that. You’re a total waste of space, Henry.”
“There’s no need for that, Vanessa,” said Alice.
“Isn’t there? It’s all very well for you with your perfect marriage to say that. You’ve got the ideal man.”
“Hang on a minute, this isn’t Henry’s fault,” said Alice. “Look at everything else he’s achieved with you – the mind transference, the robotics. He’s helped you make billions. You’re hardly going to be impoverished because this particular project hasn’t worked out, are you?”
“What would you know about it?” said Vanessa, angrily. “You didn’t want this project to succeed from the start. All we’ve ever had from you is negativity and moaning. It’s all ‘take a day off, Josh’, ‘let’s go on holiday, Josh’. He could have achieved a whole lot more in his life without you holding him back.”
“How dare you?!” reacted Alice angrily.
“Face facts, Josh,” said Vanessa, turning to him, “you’re wasted on her. You’d be better off with me, and you know it. When are you going to admit it to yourself?”
“I’ve told you enough times, Vanessa, I’m not interested,” replied Josh.
Alice looked aghast, but Henry barely batted an eyelid.
“Enough times?” asked Alice, bristling. “Exactly how long has this been going on?”
“There’s nothing going on – she’s obsessed with me and has been trying it on for months, but I swear nothing’s happened,” replied Josh. “I don’t want her.”
“And you didn’t see fit to tell me?” replied Alice, angrily.
“For the sake of the project,” said Josh, his face growing redder by the second as he struggled to justify himself, knowing he was in the wrong. “How could we all have worked together if you’d known about this?”
“The project’s more important than our relationship, is it?” asked Alice.
“You see, Josh, she doesn’t understand how important our work is and never has,” said Vanessa. “You’d be better off coming with me right now.”
“For goodness’ sake, stop deluding yourself,” interjected Henry. “Can’t you see he doesn’t want you? It’s not the first time she’s done this, you know.”
“Maybe not yet, but he will,” insisted Vanessa, eyes blazing.
“This has gone far enough!” snapped Alice at Vanessa. “I think you had better leave – right now.”
“What about the project? You still need me,” said Vanessa.
“Fuck the project!” exclaimed Alice. “And fuck you.”
This took even Josh by surprise. He could count on one hand the number of times he had heard Alice use that word in the thirty-odd years they had been together, and now she had said it twice in quick succession.
He wasn’t the only one shocked by the outburst which had attracted the attention of the neighbouring tables.
“You heard what Henry said earlier,” added Alice, lowering her tone a notch as a young woman at the next table glared at her disapprovingly. “The project’s over. You’re not going to make any money out of it and you’re not getting your hands on my husband.”
“Sure about that, are you?” asked Vanessa.
“I am,” replied Alice. “If I were you I would cut your losses and leave right now, and I don’t just mean the restaurant. I mean get yourself on a plane and go back to Canberra because we’re done here.”
“Fine,” said Vanessa, before standing up and turning to her husband. “Come on, Henry.”
“Actually, if it’s all the same with you, my dear, I think I’ll stay,” said Henry, leaning back in his chair. “I haven’t finished my steak, yet, and to be honest, I’m finding all this rather tiresome. You two don’t mind, do you?”
“You’re welcome to stay as long as you want, Henry,” replied Alice.
“Oh, I see. You’re all in it together, are you? Three against one? Well, don’t come crying to me the next time you need a lorry load of platinum for your sex robots.”
While Vanessa was on this tirade, the waiter had returned, attracted by the commotion.
“Excusez me, madame,” he began nervously, in a hybrid of English and French.
“Don’t wet your pants, mon ami, I’m leaving,” she said, to the fake Frenchman’s palpable relief. But before leaving, she offered the others one parting shot.
“And don’t think this is over – because it’s not. No one crosses me.” With that, she turned her back and strode confidently out of the restaurant.
“I’m really sorry about that,” said Josh to the waiter, aware that the room had gone quiet while their table had been the centre of attention. Thankfully now the noise levels were returning to normal.
“It is not a problem, monsieur,” said the waiter. “Is there anything else I can get for you?”
“Well, I’d be up for a bottle of champagne now she’s gone!” remarked Henry.
“I’ll drink to that,” said Alice. “A bottle of your finest Moët, please.”
Outside the restaurant, it had started to drizzle but it did nothing to dampen Vanessa’s seething rage. She paused for a while and lit a cigarette, ignoring the fact that smoking had long been banned in all public places. Few people smoked these days and she got disapproving looks from people walking by.
“What ya gonna do, fine me?” she shouted. “I could buy every house in your crappy little city.”
As she drew the soothing nicotine into her lungs, she contemplated her next move. There was no way she was going to take this lying down and was now more determined than ever to steal Josh away from Alice.
Casting the discarded cigarette butt into the gutter, she turned and looked back through the window to see the three of them clinking glasses with their champagne as Henry made some sort of toast.
If she was angry before, now she was positively incandescent with rage at Henry and Alice. They would pay – both of them – and then she could have her beloved Josh all to he
rself.
They wouldn’t have long to wait, either. As far as she was concerned there was no such thing as revenge being a dish served cold. She wanted hers piping hot and she wanted it right now.
Turning away from the restaurant, she walked back up Little Clarendon Street, the first seeds of a plan beginning to form in her mind.
Chapter Eleven
May 2058
Back in the restaurant, Josh, Alice and Henry were discussing the aftermath of the row with Vanessa.
Alice and Josh had finished their main course, but Henry was still finishing off his steak when the champagne arrived. When it was poured, Henry lifted his glass and invited the others to do the same.
“Friends, today marks the first day of the rest of our lives. I propose a toast to the three of us – with no more Vanessa.”
“You’re serious about this?” asked Alice. “You’re going to break up with her?”
“I should have done it a long time ago, Alice. You’re well aware of how it’s been with me and her. I’ve been a bloody idiot putting up with it for so long.”
“But what about the money?” she asked. “Wasn’t that the big deal with you two? She funded all your research.”
“It’s really no big deal anymore,” said Henry. “I’m hardly going to be out on the streets, am I? Besides, we’ve more or less achieved everything we’ve set out to do and she doesn’t have exclusive rights to it, no matter where the money came from. We did all the hard work.”
“She certainly doesn’t own any of our time travel work,” said Josh. “We’d been working on this stuff for thirty years before she came along. You know, Henry, you could do a lot worse than come and work with us. With your reputation you’d have no problem getting a prestigious post at Oxford, and we’re not exactly short of funding here, you know.”
“That sounds like an excellent idea,” said Henry, as he eagerly raised his last piece of steak to his lips. “You know, this steak is marvellous – even better than Madison’s.”
