Out of Time

by Bruce Macfarlane

  “So you don’t believe in God?”

  “Dear Jill, everyone, irrespective of their faith, will eventually find in some time of their lives the need to believe in God. Whether he exists or not, he will allow us to escape from the horrors of the reality that confronts us.”

  Jill and I looked at each other. “I think, Jim, that we must remember not to treat Victorian women with the contempt that some Women’s Libbers think they deserve.”

  I had almost forgotten my train of thought. I made a quick mental note to remember that just because I lived a hundred years later than Elizabeth I had no claim to intellectual superiority.

  I returned to the subject in hand. “Excuse me for digressing, ladies, but what I’m saying is: isn’t it a bit of coincidence that Maxwell comes up with his theory in the same year that Marco, who says he is an astrophysicist and you agree has some considerable knowledge of space-time, turns up?”

  “So are you saying, Jim, that Marco has gone back in time to help this Maxwell with his big sums so that time travel can exist so that Marco can go back in time to help Maxwell with … God, my head’s just exploded again!”

  “If I follow you correctly, James, we exist here because of Mr D’Ora and if we disturb him in anyway then, how can I put it, we would have never met!”

  “I don’t know, Elizabeth, but it is also possible he has other plans which we are not a part of. Thinking about it in hindsight, it is difficult to believe he just made the Loch Ness monster so we could be together.”

  “That means we could just be pawns in his game, James!”

  “But this could of course all be speculation, Jim,” said Jill.

  “So do we do nothing and hope nothing changes, or do we try to find out what he is doing and risk losing our existence?”

  Elizabeth looked at me. “Do you think, James, if we return to our own times we will remember each other for if that is the case I confess I would be rather distraught.”

  “Unfortunately, Elizabeth, based on our experiences so far, we will remember everything.”

  “Then, James, whatever we decide to do we must do together so whatever happens we will still be together.”

  “That’s very brave of you, Elizabeth, but I think we should wait until he comes back off his hols.”

  “Unless, of course, Jim, he’s using his holidays as a cover for his plans.” said Jill.

  “Great, so do nothing or do something. We might as well just toss a coin.”

  Just then there was a knock at the door. We looked at each other.

  “I’ll get it. You stay here.” And I went into the hall and opened the door.

  “Hello Mr Urquhart.”

  “Marco!”

  He was wearing the same collarless suit and zipped shirt he wore when we visited him in Manchester.

  “Yes, may I come in?”

  We all sat down. Elizabeth drew very close to me and held my hand, watching him warily while we all recounted at some length our tales and concerns.

  When we had finished Marco sat back in the chair. “I see. Well, the truth is I can travel in time but I’m not the only one. There is another at Hamgreen Lodge.”

  “What, the chap who denied ever seeing Elizabeth and her sister?”

  “Oh, you’ve been there. That makes it difficult.”

  “Why?”

  “Because he’s stolen my time machine.”

  “What! Why? How do you know it’s there?”

  “Because UPS sent me an acknowledgement of its receipt, one stasis box for the attention of Mr Batalia with the address. He obviously hadn’t heard of postal tracking. The blighter even used my name and charged it to my account!”

  “So”, said Jill, “What’s he trying to do?”

  “He is trying to turn the world back to a more ‘natural’ state and remove all the scientific discoveries since around the time of Copernicus.”

  “What, he wants everyone to think the Sun still goes around the earth? Is he succeeding?”

  “In some ways, yes. His first goal is to stop Maxwell publishing his paper. As you’ve deduced, if he removes Maxwell then there is no going back in time to stop him.

  “So Maxwell knows what’s happening?”

  “Yes.”

  “And how is he going to stop Maxwell? If he bumps him off I’m sure some other bright minds will take his place.”

  “It’s simple. He steals his papers and then works his way back through Newton to Copernicus. Imagine if you lost your university thesis and notes with no computer or cloud back up.”

  “God, you’re right, it would be a disaster! But how do you know all this?”

  “Because I found a diary of Maxwell’s at Manchester, which describes a visit by a time-traveller who offered to buy all Maxwell’s works in exchange for knowledge of a time transponder. Maxwell recorded that he smelled a rat and agreed to exchange the information but slipped him his 1860s paper on Physical Lines of Force rather than his equations. Before this chap had realised what he had done, Maxwell had gone public with his equations. But Maxwell knew that this chap might come back so he filled his diary with detailed information on time loops and nodes but more specifically the location of the nodes. He knew how to design a time machine but he also knew the technology in 1873 could not construct it.”

  “So you went back to visit Maxwell?”

  “Yes, in fact I saw him several times. Told him about the diary and how I had constructed the time machine. He was most surprised to hear about it and claimed he hadn’t written any such thing and certainly had not had any offer from any one to exchange his theories for a time machine.”

  “He must have written it after your visits, Marco,” I said.

  “Yes, that’s what I thought. He was most interested in our world and especially pleased he was so famous and wanted to know everything about Einstein. He made me go into great detail about the past hundred years. I could see at times he was quite shocked by what had happened.”

  Elizabeth said. “I am not surprised, Mr D’Ora. I admit humanity is not perfect but now they seem to have the opportunity to be imperfect on a much grander scale.”

  I tried to put this together. “So he wrote out the instructions in a diary and lodged it in the University to wait for a time in the future when the technology and materials were available?”

  “Precisely, and I constructed a machine and went back in time to tell Maxwell.”

  “So has this chap succeeded?”

  “Obviously not yet, otherwise we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

  “My God! So we need to get over to Hamgreen Lodge and destroy your time machine!”

  “Precisely.”

  “And how do we trust you?” said Jill, “You haven’t been exactly straight with us on your previous visits.”

  “You can’t, but I hope you can see that I needed to make sure your visits to the 1870s actually happened otherwise everything I’m trying to do might have changed. I can tell you one thing though: I don’t want to live in an ideal world without our advances in science and medicine and … more importantly, I’ve got an incredibly expensive hole to fill in my bank account.”

  ---~---

  Chapter Seven

  J.

  We arrived at Hamgreen about eight o’clock in the evening. I parked the car on the main road away from the gravel drive.

  “So, what’s our cunning plan, Marco?”

  “I’m afraid a bit of breaking and entry is required, but first we need to cut the power lines,” said Marco.

  “Sorry Marco but I didn’t know we were auditioning for an action movie,” said Jill.

  “Perhaps, Marco,” I said, “we should try and find the external fuse box to the house before we try to fry ourselves.”

  I suggested Jill and Elizabeth stayed in the car but Elizabeth was adamant she was going to stick to me like glue and Jill said she wasn’t going to stay on her own another night, this time with only an ashtray for a bucket.

  We approac
hed the house through the wood to avoid the gravel. It was in darkness. Jill found the external white utility box, which of course required one of those special keys to open. I was disappointed to find that neither of the girls’ handbags had one, but not as disappointed as they seemed to be in their expectations of me.

  So I went for Plan B and broke the pane on the side entrance door, expecting burglar alarms and god knows what to go off. Silence. Then I reached for the handle inside, half-fearing that my hand would be bitten off by some rabid dog, only to find the door was already unlocked.

  Jill whispered in my ear. “Jim, please tell me you checked the handle before you smashed the glass and woke the entire neighbourhood.”

  I looked to Elizabeth for support, who seemed inexplicably to be trying to hide a smile with her hand.

  “Well we are in,” salvaging my pride, “so let’s go.”

  It was almost pitch black. I felt Elizabeth grasp my hand.

  “Torch, Jim?”

  I felt myself sliding further and further off my horse.

  “Ok, ok,” I said, “Plan C. Let’s see if we can find a light switch.”

  “Shall we also put a big sign outside, Jim, saying, ‘Caution: Amateur Burglar Training Night. Police Are On Their Way’?”

  “Please Jill. It may have escaped your notice that this is not my day job.”

  “Really, so what do you do all day?”

  I felt her overnight stay at Loch Ness was a memory that was going to take some time to fade.

  “Look Jill, I’m doing my best, feeble as it is. Why don’t you give our new ‘friend’ Marco some stick instead for not pulling his weight in the ‘good ideas’ department. Besides, if we can’t find the light switch you know what that means?”

  “No.”

  “It means we are in 1873.”

  This riposte gave me a little satisfaction for a moment, though luckily in the pitch black I could not see her reply. I found the switch. The hall light came on. It was 2015, thank God.

  “Gosh James, it looks exactly like my house when I left it.”

  “So where do we go now, Marco? In fact, I’d appreciate it if you can give us a clue to what we are looking for before Elizabeth decides that …”

  “It’s easy,” said Marco. “It’s the box you were in, in Manchester.”

  We opened the hall door and I felt for the light switch on the wall behind, wondering why I still seemed to be nominated as Captain Intrepid.

  The main reception room lit up.

  “Hello Marco, hello Mr Urquhart, Miss Urquhart and this must be Miss Bicester. How confused you look, Miss Bicester. How are you finding being out of your time?”

  His lack of sympathy in her plight roused my animal instinct. I stared at the man whom we had met at Hamgreen Lodge and who claimed he did not know us. I still remembered the look on Elizabeth’s and Flory’s faces. He sat in an old moth-eaten settee with a glass of red wine next to the stasis box.

  “Maxwell!”

  I turned to Marco, who had the shock of surprise on his face.

  “Yes, Marco, and thank you for finding my diary and building the time machine.”

  Marco looked like he was going to sink into the ground.

  “But where is the time traveller?”

  “You’re looking at him, Marco, oh, and thanks for the lift to your time.”

  “I didn’t bring you back!”

  “Oh, but you did. You just didn’t look for me in the stasis box.”

  ---~---

  E.

  I was quite shocked to see this person occupying my family house without any evidence for my or Flory’s concern or wellbeing. I was determined to make my views plain.

  “Mr Maxwell! Although I am pleased that I have met James and I have seen incredible things that most people would not be privileged to see, I am appalled that I have been used as a mere trifle in your scheme, literally ripped out of my time without askance just to satisfy your desires. And then you compound this with your audacity in asking how I feel! I assure you, Mr Maxwell, if that is your real name, if I had my hat pin you would feel the vehemence of my feelings towards you!”

  I then turned to James for support who immediately impressed me with a vigorous defence, though I felt his language could have been somewhat tempered a little.

  ---~---

  J.

  I was just making a mental note to hide her hat pins when I realised that Elizabeth was expecting Captain Intrepid to do something and also to perform better than the last time we met Mr Maxwell. I had a lot of points to make up. It didn’t take much incentive. I walk over to him and grabbed him by the throat and treated Elizabeth to what I presumed was some new vocabulary.

  “Look. You’ve messed up this girl’s life so you can return us to some crap ideal world where most kids die before the age of five and only stop dying ’cos their mothers have died in bloody childbirth. Believe me, I’ve seen the gravestones.”

  Maxwell yanked my hand free but stayed put in the chair. “Your world is unnatural, sir, and needs destroying. Mr Batalia has shown me what science has done to your world. Instead of a tool for advancement, it has become a tool for social engineering.”

  “Come on, the scientific method cannot predict or control human behaviour.”

  “No, but certain people have cleverly used science to develop highly technical communication systems which they use as conduits to control the masses. Everyone is now, as you say, ‘wired in’. I think they are very close to making the human race unconscious!”

  “Rubbish! And do you not think that we have the free will to decide how we live?”

  “Look at your phone, Mr Urquhart, there is the clue in front of you. Do you carry it all the time? How many times do you look at it each day? Do you respond to every message? You are being conditioned, I say!”

  I must admit he had a point as just then I heard a notification on my phone and it took some will power not to look at it. He noticed, however.

  “You see how difficult it is to resist, sir? Your science is also destroying the material world, sir. In their quest to control human culture they ravage the precious minerals, rape the forests and pollute the atmosphere. It must be removed so that nature can take its natural course again and people are given back their free will! There is not much time. Look at the size of the world’s population: it has increased almost seven times in the last hundred years. It has become a great hive created just to feed a few queen bees.”

  “That’s not the fault of science! It’s the fault of humans who won’t stop breeding. Scientists made the Green Revolution to feed the world and the world bloody well carries on breeding at the same rate as it did in medieval times, except now the kids don’t die because science has come up with ways to stop them dying! The only problem we have is to convince people they don’t need ten blooming kids these days to ensure they’ve got a footprint in the gene pool!”

  I was rather conscious now that I was ranting on a bit and was possibly as effective as when I shout at the telly during a party-political broadcast.

  “Unfortunately, your argument is irrelevant because I have already succeeded, Mr Urquhart. I have destroyed my electromagnetic thesis and now I will go back to 1873 and not publish them. Then I will use this machine to visit Newton and his Royal Society friends and remove their papers. Then the means by which the world is controlled will cease to exist!”

  I was beginning to feel I was in the presence of some Wellsian master of the universe.

  Then, just as I reached out to grab him again I saw Marco run past me to the time machine.

  “Yes, Maxwell, but unfortunately for you your equations are so famous that most physics grads can derive them from memory without even trying. All I’ve got to do is go back to 1873, write them up and publish them in your name in London. Hold him, Mr Urquhart!”

  And with that he rushed to the stasis box. Just before he closed the door he turned to Elizabeth and held out his hand. “Last chance, Miss Bicester?”
/>
  I looked at Elizabeth. She was looking at the portal. And then she stepped forward. I felt myself falling through the floor. Around me time stood still.

  She came towards me looking straight into my eyes, and said, “Goodbye Mr D’Ora. I will take my chances here.”

  “Then goodbye, Miss Bicester.” And Marco turned and entered the portal and in a blink of an eye disappeared.

  Maxwell groaned with despair.

  ---~---

  E.

  We left Maxwell in his chair. I imagined him now trapped in James’ world with nowhere to go. I almost felt sorry for him. As we walked down the drive to James’ carriage, I thought I could hear him screaming.

  We slowly drove back to James’s cottage. I thought about Mr D’Ora and his machine and where he would go, and what powers he controlled. I wondered whether any human being could remain benevolent with such a tool.

  James woke me from my reverie.

  “I’ve been thinking about this time machine.”

  I replied half dreamingly, for I was quite exhausted, “Have you not had enough thinking for one day?”

  He ignored my quip.

  “To bend time and space must require immense amounts of power. Where did he get it from?”

  “Perhaps he has his own power station?” I said.

  “Possibly. But I know just the place to look.”

  “Do you mind if we rest from travelling for a while. For some reason I am finding just one adventure per day quite sufficient.”

  “Don’t worry. We won’t even have to leave our house.”

  ---~---

  Part II Down the Rabbit Hole

  Chapter Eight

  E.

  I had not been in James’ attic before and I allowed him to climb the ladder first.

  A yellow glow suffused a panelled room illuminating five of those dark mirrors which I had seen everywhere allowing entry to other people’s lives. He pressed a lever and a Mercator map of the world appeared on one mirror on which, by means of typewritten instructions, he overlaid a net of the red, green and blue lines which I understand to represent the distribution of the electric telegraphic cables and connections between towns and cities. I could see they concentrated on the great cities of the empire but also the Americas and China. He then illuminated a second dark mirror which displayed a blue green rotating globe which I quickly recognised as our world, though by what means this vision from space was contrived was beyond me.