The Time Bubble

by Jason Ayres

  Whilst there was no end of news about the revolutionary new treatments there seemed to be a frustrating lack of progress on them actually becoming available.

  By the time he returned in March the council had finally relented and sorted out the tunnel entrances, so there was no more climbing over the wall to see him. It was 2 o’clock in the morning when he arrived: they were able to spend their half-hour together uninterrupted.

  Before he went he reminded her not to forget about the clocks changing, though he noted that Josh had already taken account of this on the list of dates he’d sent them. He’d marked the fact that she needed to arrive an hour later than he’d departed on the next visit.

  Just before she left that time she said “I’ve got a surprise for you next time - a very pleasant surprise, in fact”.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  “If I told you that it wouldn’t be a surprise, would it? You’ll see”, she replied.

  When he arrived on 8th July it was in the middle of a heatwave. She had remembered their conversation the previous November, and gone armed not only with a blanket, but a blow-up airbed as well.

  She’d had no physical contact of any kind for eight months, and may well not have any more for another few years. She had her mind set on doing more with their half-hour this time than just talk.

  It was rather risky doing what they were doing in the middle of the tunnel in the dead of night. Hannah wondered what sort of scandal it would cause if the newly appointed D.I. Benson were to be caught having sex in public, but luck was on their side.

  This was the last time she was going to see him for over eight months and there was no way she was going to waste the opportunity.

  In fact they made more of the opportunity than they’d thought. After they kissed goodbye, he stepped once again into the Bubble. The surprise she had given him last time was nothing compared to the surprise he got when he reappeared this time. Standing before him was a very different-looking Hannah.

  She was eight and a half months pregnant.

  Chapter Twenty – 20th March 2020

  Peter was flabbergasted. This must be the fastest pregnancy on record. It was less than ten minutes ago they had been entwined together and now here she was, heavy with his child.

  “Surprise”, she said.

  “Oh my God”, was all he could say. “You’re pregnant”.

  “Yeah, I thought you might notice that”, she replied. “I’m sure you remember what happened the last time I was here”.

  “I’m hardly likely to forget”, he said. “I’m still basking in the afterglow”, he replied. “So what do we do now?” he asked.

  “The same as we did before”, she replied. “You go back into the Bubble and keep jumping until we can get you cured”.

  “But I can’t go back in now”, he said. “Don’t you see this changes everything? I can’t leave you to bring up our child alone with no father”.

  “If you don’t go back into that Bubble, the baby won’t have a father for very long. She’ll never know you”.

  “She?” asked Peter. “Did you find out the sex?”

  “No I didn’t”, she replied. “But I just have a feeling it is going to be a girl”.

  “I feel awful about going back into the Bubble now” he said. “Like one of those fathers who just abandons their pregnant partner and child. “Not only am I not going to see her born, I’m not going to see her grow up either”.

  “You’re not abandoning us. This is the only way, and you know it”, replied Hannah. “This way at least you have a fighting chance of being around when she’s older”.

  Peter knew what she was saying made sense. Reluctantly he conceded that he had no choice. But how much of her childhood was he going to miss? He decided to ask her if there had been any development on the treatment front.

  “It’s been slow-going” she replied. “They always seem to be on the verge of a breakthrough, but then there’s some sort of setback. The latest I’ve heard is that they’ve successfully carried out the treatment on mice in America, but tests on humans haven’t worked satisfactorily. You are going to have to wait a while longer, I’m afraid”.

  “And what about you?” asked Peter. “Are you going to be able to manage OK?”

  “I’ll be fine”, she said. Since her promotion she had earned a good salary and with it came a very generous maternity package. “Don’t worry. Everything is going to be fine”.

  She hadn’t told anyone at work that he was the father – how could she? It was none of their business anyway. She was glad she lived in such enlightened times. Had a woman in her position got pregnant in such a way a generation ago, it would have been frowned upon.

  She had, however, confided in Charlie and the rest of the group. She saw them regularly and always filled them in on the details of her meetings with Peter.

  She hadn’t gone into any intimate details, but when she let them know she was pregnant she had to come clean about when and where it had happened. Lauren had been quite impressed. She thought it was only teenagers who got up to illicit sex outdoors.

  “The rest of the team send their regards” she said. “They wanted to come down and see you, but I said I needed to talk to you about the baby and they understood”.

  “Maybe next time”, said Peter. “It’ll be over a year until I’m next here. Will you bring the baby, too?”

  “Of course I will”.

  “It’s time for me to go”, he said. “I’m sorry I can’t be there at the birth”.

  “It’s OK” she replied. “You’ve got a good excuse. And don’t worry about the birth. I’ve found myself a birthing partner – it’s Kaylee”. Hannah and Kaylee had become good friends over the past eighteen months and spent a lot of time together.

  “Well – good luck. I can’t wait to meet my daughter”, he said.

  “You’ll see her almost straightaway”, she said. “It’s going to be a long time for me, though”.

  They kissed and he stepped once again into the Bubble.

  He emerged again around 4am on the 14th August 2021 to find quite a party waiting for him: Charlie, Kaylee, Josh and Lauren. He noticed how grown-up they all looked now. Nearly three years had passed since he’d last seen them.

  “Congratulations!” the four of them shouted. He noticed they’d hung a banner above their heads which read “Welcome Back, Daddy”. But where was his child?

  The four of them moved aside to reveal Hannah standing behind them, complete with pushchair and an adorable blonde-haired little girl sitting inside. She looked up at him through clear blue eyes and smiled.

  “Peter”, she said. “Come and meet your daughter. This is Jessica Rose Benson, born April 7th 2020”.

  “She’s beautiful”, he replied.

  “You can hold her, if you like”, said Hannah. “I wanted to give her your surname, but they wouldn’t allow me if you weren’t present”.

  In just under an hour he’d gone from conceiving his child to holding her in his arms. It was the proudest moment of his whole life.

  “It’s good to see you again, sir”, said Charlie.

  “What are you all doing now?” he asked.

  Josh had managed to get into Oxford to do maths. He was also developing an interest in the tachyon research that was going on there. Lauren was working in Oxford as a beauty therapist, and frequently sneaked into his halls of residence at night.

  Kaylee and Charlie were inseparable and had managed to both get into Bristol University. His latest arrival had worked out well because, with it being the middle of August, they were all home for the holidays.

  After they’d chatted for a while, Lauren suggested giving Hannah, Peter and Jessica a little time together, so they said their goodbyes and headed back up the tunnel.

  “If you thought I didn’t want to go last time, now it’s ten times worse”, he said. “Has there been any progress?”

  Hannah hated having to give him the bad news but it was once again a n
egative. There had been endless further trials and false dawns over the past year or so that he had been away.

  Reluctantly he held his daughter tightly to him for one last time before heading off once again. There were tears in his eyes as he left. This time he really was going for a long time.

  When he returned in June 2024, baby Jessica was a baby no longer but a four-year-old girl. As a precaution, they moved along the tunnel well away from the centre. The last thing they wanted was a lively four-year-old running into the Time Bubble.

  This time Hannah was able to introduce him properly as her daddy. It was very hard for them to explain where he had been so they had to settle for “Daddy was away and would have to go away again soon, but one day they would all be together”.

  They hoped that day would be soon. Hannah had brought much more positive news this time. A medical breakthrough had been made in America very recently, and she’d kept the clippings from the newspapers to show him.

  The tests had all gone exceedingly well, and it was expected that the treatment would be available within a year.

  This put them into something of a quandary. Did he stay, and they gamble that he could get the treatment in time? Or should they sacrifice five more precious years in order to be sure?

  They sat and talked it over for more than an hour. Jessica was tired and fell asleep in her father’s arms as they sat talking against the wall of the tunnel.

  Eventually they agreed that he had to go back in leaving Hannah and Jessica alone for another five and a half years. As he entered the Bubble once more he prayed that this would be the last time.

  But when he emerged again, there was no warm welcome awaiting him.

  The first thing he noticed was the dark. The lights in the tunnel were off and there was no light coming from the end of the tunnel. He couldn’t see a thing.

  The second thing that hit him was the cold. He had dressed quite warmly when he’d come out on that cold November night back in 2018, but he wasn’t prepared for anything like this. It was absolutely freezing. The jumper and jacket he was wearing were not going to keep him warm for long.

  He took his phone out of his pocket and pressed the home key to turn it on and shed a little light on the situation. He remembered that his phone had a torch app on it and tried to locate it. He had never had any need for it – until now.

  He had no signal on the phone but that was hardly surprising. It had probably been deactivated years ago. As he switched on his torch app he reflected that his phone was probably virtually an antique now. He wondered how far technology had advanced since he’d been gone. Perhaps phones were obsolete altogether by now.

  His phone had a built-in thermometer which told him that the external temperature in the tunnel was minus 12 degrees Celsius. He needed to get out of here and into the warm fast.

  Using the torch app to light his way, he walked up to the end of the tunnel. As he approached he could see that it was again sealed off. The crude brick walls that Josh and his brother had built were long gone, but now there was something smoother and more solid in place.

  As he got there he realised what it was – a sheer face of solid, hard-packed ice. There was no way he was going to be getting through that. He walked back down to the other end of the tunnel to discover exactly the same.

  What had happened? He knew that it was January, but snow and ice of this extent were unprecedented even in the depths of midwinter. Had a new ice age begun whilst he was in the Bubble? There was no way of knowing.

  He checked the watch she had given him. The date and time on it had not updated. Was that because the satellites above were no longer operating, due to some global catastrophe? Or could the signal just not penetrate below the ice?

  He was freezing cold and shivering now, his attire proving woefully inadequate for the conditions. He was also finding it difficult to breathe. The searing cold air was burning into his lungs, and he also suspected that there was not a lot of oxygen in the tunnel. His fingers were turning blue with the cold and beginning to go numb.

  He knew he could not survive long in these conditions. He feared for Hannah and Jessica. If things really were bad up there, would they have survived? There was only one way to find out.

  The thought of having to disappear for eleven more years horrified him. As so often before, though, he had no choice. It was either that or freeze to death waiting for someone to come, and if they were going to come, they would have done so already.

  Before he left, with shaking and freezing numb fingers he wrote his initials, the date and the time down on the back of the card Josh had given him and pushed it into a crack between two bricks right by the entrance to the Time Bubble. If Hannah did come eventually, at least she would know what time he’d reappear. That’s if the snow didn’t melt and flood the place, of course.

  Dreading what he might find after the next jump, he prepared to step once again into the Bubble.

  High above the tunnel, on top of fifteen feet of densely packed snow stood Hannah, dressed from head to toe in an outfit that made her look as if she was going on an Antarctic expedition.

  She had been digging vainly with her shovel for hours, but had realised in frustration that she could go no deeper. The snow that had been there for over a year now had impacted into solid ice.

  Fighting back the tears, she realised that she was not going to see him. The global winter that had enveloped the planet had devastated Britain, and it was a miracle she had even managed to get this far in the blizzard-like conditions.

  The most gutting thing of all was that shortly after his last jump there had been a major announcement that the cure for his leukaemia had been found. It was freely available on the NHS less than a year afterwards.

  She tried calling out his name more than once, but there was no way he was going to be able to hear her through the howling wind and the never-ending snow.

  Reluctantly she abandoned her attempt to dig down to the tunnel and began the long trek back to the farmhouse where she had left her daughter sleeping. Life was purely about survival now and she was determined not to give up.

  Eleven years had passed since Peter had first jumped into the Time Bubble, now all she could do was try and make sure she would still be around after another eleven.

  Chapter Twenty-One – 30th March 2041

  Peter reappeared to see to his relief that the lights were back on. He also saw a beautiful young woman standing in front of him who looked vaguely familiar.

  “Hello, Dad”, she said.

  Peter realised at once that he was looking at his daughter. But before he could say anything else, he heard another vaguely familiar voice speak from behind him. “Hello, Dad?” the voice enquired. “What sort of game are you playing here, Jess?”

  Peter turned around to see a fat, bald-headed middle-aged man standing behind him. The man had his eyes closed.

  “Can I open my eyes yet?” asked the man. And then he added, rather crudely, “Have you got your knickers off yet?”

  Peter was outraged at someone speaking to his daughter like that, but before he could say anything Jessica spoke into a futuristic-looking device on her wrist and said, “OK – he’s here. Go!”

  Two other men came running up the tunnel towards them from the direction of town. Peter was thoroughly confused by all of this: what on earth was going on?

  The fat man opened his eyes, and suddenly Peter realised who he was. He may have been in his forties now but the fat, piggy eyes he remembered so well from school were still there. It was Daniel Fisher.

  Dan looked at him, recognition showing in his eyes. “Hey, I know you. You’re that teacher who disappeared. They said you were dead. What are you doing here?”

  “Sorry, Dan”, said Jessica. “I’m afraid you’re not going to have time to find out”.

  The two men running up the tunnel reached Dan, and with an almighty push, shoved his fat bulk right into the entrance to the Time Bubble where he instantly vanished.

&
nbsp; Jessica and the two men cheered. As Peter looked at their faces more closely, he recognised a very mature-looking Charlie and Josh. With a quick calculation he figured that they must be in their forties by now.

  “At last!” exclaimed Josh. “We’ve finally got rid of the bastard”.

  “And good riddance”, said Charlie.

  “Welcome back, sir!” said Josh.

  “I think Peter will do now, don’t you?” he replied. “After all you did leave school over twenty years ago”. He then turned his attention back to his daughter.

  “Jessica” was all he said, and they hugged each other deeply.

  “I’ve waited so long for you, Dad” she replied. “Mum has explained everything to me and I do understand”.

  “We’ve a lot of catching up to do”, he replied. “Where is she, by the way?”

  “Right here” came a voice from behind him.

  He turned to see that Hannah had walked up the tunnel behind Charlie and Josh.

  Although she was older now, she was still beautiful. Her face may have looked a little older, but her eyes burned as brightly as ever and she still had a fantastic figure.

  “Yes, I know what you’re thinking”, she said. “I must look so old!”

  “You look amazing”, he replied.

  “Flatterer!” she said. “Still, looking on the bright side, we don’t have to worry about the age gap between us anymore. I’m older than you are now. You’re just in time to help me celebrate my 50th birthday”.

  “So what happened last time?” asked Peter.

  “Well, we had a little trouble with the weather”, replied Hannah.

  “That’s putting it mildly!” remarked Josh.

  “Did you get my note?” he asked.

  “It was a bit soggy from the flood water, but we managed to decipher it”, said Josh.

  “And what about the leukaemia?” he asked.

  “It’s all going to be fine”, said Hannah. “Come on. Let’s go home and I’ll tell you all about it”.