by Jason Ayres
What he couldn’t guarantee was that he wouldn’t appear out of the blue in plain view of someone. This had already happened a couple of times. Fortunately, people were usually so taken aback by the experience that he could be away and gone before they’d had a chance to react. He wasn’t too worried about them telling anyone about it. Who would believe them?
Today was to be one of those occasions. Josh had set the tachyometer to take him all the way back to August 1990, in the hope of finding the mysterious Thomas Scott.
The contrast between the conditions at his departure point and his arrival couldn’t have been greater. From a wet, windy night in the early autumn of 2049, he found himself arriving in the middle of a heatwave, sun blazing down, during the hottest part of a summer afternoon.
Unfortunately, he’d arrived right on top of a tartan picnic blanket in the middle of a young couple who were lying on the blanket sharing a romantic kiss.
He tripped right over the woman, sprawling to the ground, knocking over a bottle of champagne and two plastic glasses in the process. One of these spilled directly onto her light, white summer dress.
The young man, wearing a Blues Brothers T-shirt and light blue jeans, leapt up shouting, “Oi, mate, what’s your game? Are you some sort of perv?”
There was something vaguely familiar about the man, but Josh couldn’t place it. Whoever he was, he didn’t have the time for getting into an argument with him. He mumbled a feeble “Sorry” and ran, reflecting that he was going to have to get into better physical shape. Time-travelling could clearly be hazardous and having the ability to sprint a good couple of hundred yards quickly could come in quite handy – never more so than now.
“Come back here!” shouted the man. “What about our champagne?” As Josh ran, he looked back and realised he could be in trouble. The man was getting up to pursue him. Luckily for Josh, the girl called him back.
“Leave it, George,” she called. “It’s not worth it.”
Josh ran through the heavy, black iron gates that led out of the meadows and along the short road that led to the High Street. He was very relieved to see that George had not followed him any further.
He had at least an hour before he was due to meet Thomas, and took the opportunity to have a good look around him.
He loved going back into history: it filled him with nostalgia. This was the furthest back he had ever gone. 1990 was over a decade before his birth.
As he walked up the High Street he marvelled at how many things in Oxford were the same, and yet so different. The basic architecture never changed, but all the things that filled it did. He couldn’t believe how much hair everybody had, especially the men.
He chuckled at one young man’s hairstyle. He had bleached blond hair that was short at the front and sides but huge at the back, trailing down over his shoulders. He had seen something similar in old pop videos from the time by some Australian actor whose name he couldn’t recall. He didn’t know what the hairstyle was called either, but his father would instantly have recognised it as a mullet.
The thing that most marked the time period was the cars. As he turned into the High Street he was delighted to see an old yellow Citroën 2CV. He had never seen one of these in the flesh before; only in an old Bond movie.
The small car was packed with six teenagers inside, all girls, with the window down and a classic Bon Jovi tune blaring out. Two of the girls were practically hanging out of the back windows. It seemed that they didn’t bother with seat belts much in this time.
Josh also noticed that hardly any of the many cyclists around were wearing helmets. By the 2040s, they were compulsory. Clearly the 20th century was a far less health and safety-conscious time. Dangerous, yes, but there was a refreshing sense of freedom about it all.
The 2CV was followed by three red double-decker buses, all bearing the same number and destination “2A Barton”. They moved in convoy over Magdalen Bridge, all belching out exhaust fumes, making Josh cough as he breathed in the smell of leaded petrol. The air quality was really bad in the city compared to 21st century standards.
Quite why three buses needed to be going to Barton all at the same time with only about three people on each, Josh had no idea. They probably didn’t have sophisticated, computer-controlled traffic management in this time period, he figured.
He decided to wander up to the pub where he and Alice had been drinking three weeks ago and 59 years in his future. He was delighted to discover that it was virtually unchanged from that day.
Reaching into his pocket for the clunky 1990 currency he’d brought along with him, he went in and ordered a pint. It cost him the princely sum of £1.30, which he paid for with two pound coins. He was handed back a fifty pence piece and two tens, which were much larger than the ones he had grown up with. Now this was real money, he thought. It felt worth something.
Enjoying his pint in the sunshine, he noticed how much everyone else around him seemed to be enjoying themselves. The hot weather probably helped, but, that aside, people of all ages were gathered around the tables, chatting and laughing.
There was a refreshing lack of technology present: no implants, no mobile phones, in fact no devices of any kind as far as he could see, just the simple pleasures of beer, sunshine and friendship.
Perhaps he’d have to come back here for a time travel holiday at some point. When he’d been growing up he’d laughed at older people going on about the good old days. Now he had to concede that maybe they’d had a point.
Anxious not to lose track of time, he finished his pint and headed off up to the Radcliffe Camera with a good ten minutes or so to spare. The circular stone monument looked exactly as it had in his time, as was true of most of Oxford’s famous landmarks, only the railings surrounding it were missing.
He was getting quite excited about what potentially lay in store. Was he really going to meet a man travelling back from the future, or was it indeed all the delusions of a madman? As five o’clock came and went he was beginning to have serious doubts about the whole thing.
He stopped close to a young, blonde girl and her boyfriend who were sitting on the steps of the monument, sharing a bottle of wine in the sunshine. That would never have been allowed in Josh’s time. They didn’t look more than about 17, but he noticed a passing policeman barely gave them a second glance.
He surreptitiously pulled out the tachyometer and scanned for readings. Just then he heard a tentative voice behind him. “Josh?”
He turned, and standing before him was a young man, barely more than a boy, looking quizzically at him. Josh examined his face, trying to match it to the hazy memory of the middle-aged man he had met so many years ago. Looking more closely, he could see that it was indeed him, fresh-faced, smiling and clearly delighted to see him.
Once they had exchanged greetings, they went for a coffee and a catch-up which gave Thomas a chance to explain more about the strange life he had lived.
He left Josh in no doubt that he was telling the truth when he casually dropped the names of Barack Obama and David Cameron into the conversation.
No one in 1990 could have known that they would become future world leaders. Satisfied that Thomas was the genuine article, and with the help of the second tachyometer, Josh took him to the future to see himself in his later years.
They travelled to his house in Oxford many years after he believed he had originally died, where he saw himself alive and well, with his wife, children and grandchildren all around him.
Thomas had been filled with both joy and sadness, seeing once again the loved ones he had left behind in his backwards travel through time.
While they were there, Josh took a photo and after returning Thomas to his own time, he jumped back to 1973 and left it for Thomas to find. At least now he would have something to remember his family by.
Josh was satisfied that the endless debate over whether or not time was set in stone had been answered. The version of the future that he had shown Thomas differed from th
e one that Thomas had originally lived. His actions as he had travelled backwards through time had altered not only his future, but also that of those around him. Of this there could be no doubt.
It was clear that Josh was going to have to tread very carefully if he made any further trips back into time. He thought back to the barbecue earlier in the year and the concerns Peter had raised. They were now very real.
Before he could make any hard and fast decisions about future use of the tachyometers, there was still one trip that he had to make. He’d left it until last, as it wasn’t going to be a pleasant task, but he had to find out exactly what had happened to Lauren.
Returning to his laboratory, he began to make preparations.
Chapter Eleven
September 2063
It had been a tough couple of years for Jess. She’d lost her mother to an illness that even the advanced medical science of the mid-21st century could not cure.
Despite Josh’s offer to travel to the future to try and find a solution, none could be found. Eventually Hannah had grown to accept the fate that had claimed her at just seventy years of age. She knew she’d had a good life with a husband and a daughter she adored.
When the end came it was very quick. She didn’t suffer a long, lingering death, which was a comfort to her in her final moments. She wanted Jess and Peter to remember her as she had always been, vibrant and full of life right up until the end.
Not long after her mother’s death, Jess had split up with her boyfriend of ten years. He had ended the relationship out of the blue with the announcement he’d met someone else. Further digging revealed that he had been shagging Jess’s best friend, Charlotte, for over three years. The break-up was short and acrimonious, but it at least it was clean, ending with him asking her to move out of his flat.
There was little other baggage involved. They had never got round to having children and the flat was owned solely by him. All she had to do was pack her bags and walk out of the door, writing off an entire decade of her life in the process.
As an added humiliation, when she went back the next day to pick up her last few things, Charlotte opened the door to her.
She had lost her boyfriend, her home, and her best friend in one devastating turn of events. With nowhere else to go, and her father grieving for her recently deceased mother, the sensible solution for both of them was for her to move back home.
Peter was delighted to have his daughter back with him, and together they gradually came to terms with Hannah’s loss. Disillusioned by her relationship break-up and seeing no reason to get involved in another one, Jess was quite happy to stay and spend time with her father.
They found themselves spending more time together than ever before. It was a chance to make up for all those years he was absent when she was growing up. It was very handy for work, too. The school where she worked as a primary schoolteacher was only a stone’s throw away from the family home.
After a year or two, Jess felt happy and settled again, but it was not to last. In a further cruel twist, Peter discovered that the leukaemia that had necessitated his absence from her childhood had returned. This time the illness was much further advanced, and he was a lot older than he had been the first time around.
The prognosis was bleak and no future advances in medical science could help him this time. He had broken the news to Jess as gently as he could, but she had understandably been devastated.
All of this had come to light just over a month before Dan was due to emerge from the time bubble, an event about which the team had been in a quandary. What could they do with him this time? Shove him back in again? It wasn’t going to solve the long-term problem.
Josh had experimented with the possibility of shutting the whole thing down, but unlike the bubbles he created himself, the original stubbornly refused to be controlled. It seemed set in time, destined to go on doubling forever. He hadn’t given up, and knew he would find the solution eventually, but he wasn’t going to have the answer in time for Dan’s impending emergence.
The issue remained unresolved when Peter found out that he was ill again. Thinking about his future and what little of it there was left, it occurred to him that perhaps he could solve the problem of the time bubble once and for all.
He could ensure nobody would ever fall innocently into it again, as well as giving himself the adventure of a lifetime into the bargain. He’d always wanted to see the future and now he had his chance. Josh had recently told him that he’d discovered that the tachyometers had their limits. The further he jumped forwards or backwards in time, the greater the energy demands.
The furthest Josh had managed to travel in time was about 200 years in either direction. Peter had a plan in mind that would blow that out of the water. Josh may have been the time travel guru, but Peter’s idea had the potential to take him all the way to the end of time.
He would enter the time bubble again and jump through it over and over again, spending his final days travelling to Earth’s distant future. He wouldn’t live to tell the tale, and he wasn’t sure if there would even be anybody in the future left to tell it to, but what an amazing journey it would be!
Once he’d come up with the idea, he broached it with Josh first before speaking to Jess. It was a sound plan as far as Josh was concerned. He had done all manner of calculations on the nature of the time bubble and was able to present Peter with an accurate list of the jump dates. These escalated rapidly with the doubling nature of the bubble.
After eight jumps he would pass the year 10,000. Another seven jumps after that and he would be over a million years in the future. It was both an exciting and a daunting prospect, with the very real possibility of instant death at any point should he emerge into a hostile environment.
It was pretty scary stuff, but compared to dying from cancer in a hospital bed? There was no contest. He just hoped that Jess would see it the same way. He broke the news to her over breakfast, the morning after his conversation with Josh. She was understandably distraught, but eventually came to accept the situation and his reasons for doing what he intended to do.
On the morning he left, she had wanted to go with him to the tunnel, but he had advised against it. Dan would be emerging from the time bubble just before Peter jumped, and the last thing he wanted was for Jess to be there. She needed to be safely out of harm’s way. So, after a final meal together the night before, they shared an emotional farewell at home early the following morning.
He almost couldn’t bring himself to go, leaving her as he did in floods of tears at the front door, but he had no choice. It would be better this way than have her watch him die from the cancer. He couldn’t put her through that again, not after what had happened to her mother. He knew that she would not be lonely. Charlie and Kaylee had promised him they would take care of her.
With tears welling up in his own eyes he pulled away from a long and lingering final hug to set off on his final journey.
Heartbroken and unable to face the world, Jess had retreated into the house for the rest of the day after he left. Charlie and Kaylee had offered to come over and keep her company, and she had appreciated their kindness but politely declined. She just wanted to be alone.
That was the previous day. Now, as she awoke, she felt ready to face the world again. Still living in the same house that her father had bought almost fifty years ago, she got up and thought about the rest of her life. She was now an orphan, at the age of 43, with not even any siblings for comfort. As far as family went, she was now alone.
But she wasn’t completely alone. Kaylee, Charlie and their children had always felt like a second family to her and she knew she would always have them. When it came to romance, her past relationships may not have worked out, but there was no need for her to feel disheartened. 43 was no age at all these days and she felt like she had her whole life stretching out before her.
School would be starting again the following week and she would be able to throw herself into her work
. She loved teaching and the kids loved her. Her father had been an excellent teacher, and she was doing an excellent job of carrying on the family profession.
She hadn’t given up on the hope of having kids herself at some point. It wasn’t unusual at all for the women of her generation to delay starting a family until they were in their forties, or even fifties in some cases. But she wasn’t going to bust a gut trying to find “Mr Right”. If he came along, then all well and good; if not, well she didn’t need a man to complete herself.
Determined to focus on the positives and banishing all thoughts of self-pity, she dragged herself out of bed.
“Radio,” she stated, and the house was instantly filled with the sound of the local station, the one she’d grown up listening to when Kaylee used to read out the weather. With speakers in every wall, she went into the bathroom just as the hourly news bulletin was starting.
Unlike film and TV which had been subject to one innovation after another, radio hadn’t changed a great deal over the decades. It still followed pretty much the same format as it always had, a mix of pop hits, present and past, a bit of idle chat, and news and weather on the hour, every hour.
At first she didn’t pay a huge amount of attention to the news. It was just background noise, while her mind was occupied with thoughts of the day ahead.
Most of the stories were about Oxford, but when she heard her home town mentioned, it caught her notice.
“Police are on the lookout for a man who broke into a house in St Margaret’s Close yesterday morning and later evaded custody. He is believed to be the same man who robbed a 49-year-old woman of her purse later the same day on a local bus. The man is described as late-thirties, heavily built, with shortly cropped hair. He was last seen wearing a yellow and black-striped rugby shirt. Members of the public are advised not to approach him if they suspect they may have seen him, but to contact police to inform them of his whereabouts.
