“So what do I do with it?”
Spider couldn’t believe he was about to say this. “Give it to me. I’ll see what I can do. It might be fixable.”
“You just said it might explode!”
“I didn’t get my qualifications from a box of corn flakes, Mr. Vincent. There are things we can try that might help.”
“And if not? What if you get killed?”
“You’ll be among the first to know.”
“Holy crap,” he said, now starting to understand. “I could have killed my girlfriend.”
“This is what you get for buying a used time machine off a classified ad, if you’ll pardon me saying so. No warranty. No service contract. No protection of any kind. You’ve gone and bought yourself a bloody bomb!”
“Right,” said Vincent. “Right.”
“I’ll need the name and contact details of the guy you bought it from, too.”
Vincent stared at Spider, all anxious. “I’m not sure if I still have those. We did a big clean-out recently, going through all the accumulated crap on the household network, old bills, bank statements, receipts, business cards, share dividends, bits and pieces, you know, a real purge.”
“You don’t keep backups, just in case?”
“Not for stuff like that. Takes up too much space.”
It baffled Spider that, in an age when computational storage capacity was nearly free and limitless, most people persisted in behaving as if it was terribly expensive and scarce. It was strange. He really didn’t understand it.
“Hmm. Too much space. I see.” Spider was feeling that, at this rate, he might have a stroke. “Look. Mr. Vincent, listen to me. We’re going to take your Tempo back to the shop. We’ll do what we can. Meanwhile, you are going to find out for me exactly who you bought this thing from. Odds are he’s still selling them. Look on eBay, too. I can’t tell you how many dud time machines get sold on eBay. Find the guy. When you do, give me his details. We’ll have a chat. All right?”
“Okay. Right.”
“Right. Now then…”
Mr. Vincent piped up. “Oh, wait a minute. Can you give me some kind of a quote for what all this might set me back? Just so I know.”
Spider was tempted to give him a quote from something bleak by Shakespeare, but instead told the guy that just for openers he’d be looking at about one thousand dollars, and probably more.
“But I only paid two thousand for the thing itself.”
“Sir,” Spider said, “we’re risking our lives by working on this death trap of yours. Do you have any idea what our public liability insurance is like? Huh? If it blows, and takes me, Charlie, and most of the rest of Malaga with it, the insurance company will come looking for you, Mr. Vincent. It’s your choice.”
“And if I just say forget about fixing it, I’ll sell it on to someone else…”
“In that case I will personally report you to DOTAS. You could, and this is the funny part, you could do time. You see how that would be funny?” Spider wasn’t smiling.
Mr. Vincent, not happy, beamed his details into Spider’s watchtop.
Spider reciprocated, sending a quote, a receipt (1 x Time Machine, Personal, Tempo 300, Non-Functioning), and a business card to Vincent’s own watchtop.
That all done, Spider got the guy to move his SUV out of the way, so he and Charlie could hook the unit’s trailer up to their van.
Ten minutes later, the trailer attached, Spider and Charlie took off back to the workshop, trailing what Spider was certain was a bloody great huge bomb that could go off at any moment.
Charlie, feeling a little better, though still uneasy about the unit behind them, said, “You know what you’re doing, right?”
“Sure I do,” Spider said, being careful to take the very long way back to Malaga, following obscure back roads wherever possible.
“And if it kills us?”
“If it kills us, we’ll be dead, and we won’t ever have to piss about with bloody time machines ever again, Charlie. It’s practically the best outcome we could ask for, really, if you think about it.”
“I hadn’t thought of it that way.”
“Stick with me, kid, you’ll do all right.”
CHAPTER 2
The workshop was one of countless, ugly, concrete tilt-up structures built in the Malaga area over the past few decades. There was a small and fairly tidy reception area out front, and a huge, echoing workshop behind. The sign above the door, in a large bold font, read TIME MACHINES REPAIRED WHILE-U-WAIT, Established 2015. ALL MAKES AND MODELS. GUARANTEED. TEMPUS CERTIFIED SERVICE ENGINEERS.
Spider and Charlie pulled into the driveway and went around to the parking area behind the workshop. They unhooked the Tempo’s trailer from the van then rolled the trailer and its load into one of the few available bays in the workshop. There was a strong odor of electricity, grease and existential bitterness. The time machine repair business was good; no shortage of people with malfunctioning time machines that happened to be out of warranty, or who didn’t want to pay the ludicrous prices charged by the official dealerships. The thing that impressed customers the most was the way, once their machines were fixed, no matter how long it took to actually do the work, the technicians could time-travel the unit back to the client, returning it mere moments after said client had watched Spider and Charlie take it away. It made for very happy customers, good word-of-mouth, and plenty of repeat business.
Spider left Charlie to supervise things as the workshop became aware of the new arrival and interrogated it for its details. Spider went to the office in search of badly needed strong coffee. The new receptionist, Malaria — her real name, to Spider’s surprise and her apparent lifelong dismay — was on the phone with a potential client. She looked to be having a bad day. “Ah, and here’s the boss, just walked through the door. Just a moment, I’ll put him on…”
Spider was trying to wave her off, or indicate that he wasn’t really there, or was much too busy to come to the phone, but Malaria was insistent. She was a towering young woman nearly two meters tall, all gawky and angular, dressed in black. He checked to make sure he was wearing a fresh phone patch under his ear. “This is Webb,” he said, dreading whatever might come next.
“Oh, thank bloody God,” a frustrated older woman said, “I’m in a real pickle here and I can’t get anybody anywhere to give me the time of day, let alone some help—”
He gestured to Malaria that he needed coffee, and she made a production out of ignoring him. To the caller, he said, “You’ve got a problem with your time machine, is that right, ma’am?”
“Time machine? What did you say?”
“I asked if you’re having a problem with your time machine. Which would be why you’d decided to call a time machine repair shop.”
“I haven’t got a time machine,” she said. “I’m calling about my car.”
Spider stared at Malaria, still hoping to get her to organize some coffee. She continued to ignore him. “This is a time machine repair shop, ma’am. We don’t fix cars, I’m sorry.”
“I’ll have you know I got this number from one of your advertisements,” she said.
This was starting to get amusing. “You found an ad for ‘Time Machines Repaired While-U-Wait’, and decided we were a likely source of help with your car troubles?”
“Time machines?”
He rubbed his forehead. “We fix time machines, yes, ma’am.”
“How did you get this number?” she asked, indignant.
“Um, you called us?”
“Call this number again and I’ll set my lawyers on you. Good day, sir.” She killed the connection.
Spider touched his phone patch to hang up. “That was different,” he said.
“She was on the phone with me for half an hour before you got here. Bl
oody nutters, the world’s full of ’em.”
Spider politely ignored the opportunity to ask about Malaria’s parents, and said instead, “Any other calls? Genuine inquiries, preferably?”
“Usual assortment. You realize most of what I do here is low-level tech support, right? I mean, I get people phoning up who don’t know how to start their time machines. I get people who get all upset that they can’t visit ancient Rome, or go to the Crucifixion. I—”
Spider listened patiently, only too familiar with such complaints. People loved having time machines — but hated the government-imposed restrictions on what they could do at certain key events in history, and the Crucifixion was perhaps the most controversial. Yes, you could go there, but only in ghost mode.
“Yeah, the number of people who complain to me because they can’t save the Lord, or take His place, or who want to give Mary a hug or a biscuit. How do you stand it?” Malaria had only recently started working at the shop.
“Maintain a sense of humor, Malaria. It’s your best defense.”
“You mean I’m allowed to laugh at them?”
“Not out loud, no, sadly.”
“Pity.”
“Any other calls?”
“There was a Ms. Pollit, asking about her unit, and if she’d have to pay extra to have the interior carpeting cleaned. Apparently someone here told her something about hideous extra charges for having stains removed?”
Spider sighed. “I’ll call her back. What else?”
“Just the usual blather. Oh, and your wife called, said it was, and I quote, ‘urgent.’ You’ll note the irony quotes I put around her use of the word ‘urgent,’ sir.”
“Quotes logged and noted, Malaria. And, point of information, she and I are…” He sighed, worn out from trying and failing to make Molly happy. “We’re doing one of those trial separation thingies.”
“Is that why she calls so often?” Why doesn’t she just call you direct?”
Spider said, “I try not to give her my personal number.”
“Ah,” she said.
It was true. Spider had heard from Molly far more often, sometimes several times per day, since they started the trial separation, than he had ever heard from her when they were together. And, as Malaria had indicated, when Molly called it was always something “urgent.”
“So what’s the problem this time? Did she say?”
“Something to do with the home network? Router on the blink, I think. Oh, I made a rhyme!”
“You’re a poet, Malaria.”
“Oh yes. Bob from the wreckers called to say a ‘cryo coil’ for Mr. Tan’s unit, should be in tomorrow. Having some problems getting a good one, apparently, and also wanted to know how you’d feel about a reconditioned one.” Mr. Tan’s time machine, a high-end Boron, needed special care.
“Okay, that sounds fine. Now, I need you to call James at DOTAS. Let him know we’ve just picked up a unit with what looks like a Section Three situation, and—”
Malaria was frowning at him, her left hand wrapped around a stylus in a grip of death, waiting to make a note. “A Section Three situation? Um, what?”
Spider was sure he had specified to the job agency that all candidates for this position had to have at least a Time Machines for Dummies level of familiarity with the business in order to get the job. He said, trying to keep calm, “Looks like bad manifold-displacement problems.”
“Oh,” she said, hunched over, scribbling on a screen, writing, apparently, upside-down. “Of course.”
Spider ignored her sarcasm. “Basically, it’s possible the thing could blow up on us, so you need to tell James that we need the Bat Cave.”
Malaria froze, straightened up, blinked three times, and stared up at Spider. “Bat. Cave. I see.”
Spider gnawed at his lip for a moment. “Hmm. Bat Cave. How to explain…” He looked around the office, noting all the glossy posters advertising high-end time machines, as well as the dire animated motivational posters Dickhead McMahon — Spider’s boss, and owner of the company — insisted they had to have. To Malaria, he said, “The ‘Bat Cave’ is a portable, self-enclosed, man-made universe, you might say. The idea is—”
“Man-made universe, you say?” she said, chewing on the end of her stylus. Spider tried not to notice the way her fingernails flickered with tiny videos.
“Yeah. Otherwise, the unit might explode, you see, when we try to take it apart.”
Malaria stared at him, wide-eyed. “It might what?”
“Yeah. Sort of dangerous. Need to let the government know, that kind of thing.”
“Nobody at the job office told me I could get blown up!”
“That’s why we need the Bat Cave. We put the unit in there, and we stand outside, teleoperating various tools, and if the thing does explode, nobody gets hurt.”
“‘If the thing does explode,’ you say,” she said, clearly disturbed but trying to act cool about it.
“The glamorous world of time machine repair, Malaria.” He forced a jolly smile he didn’t feel. “Always something exciting going on!”
“All right,” she said, trying to manage her breathing, “keep calm, keep calm. Um, if the thing is going to explode, how much warning will there be?”
“Warning?”
“Yeah, as in—”
“No warning. It’s basically a live bomb. We have to defuse it.”
Malaria was unhappy to hear this. “Holy shit. Uh, sir.”
“Nothing to worry about, Malaria. See, the Bat Cave is a self-enclosed—”
“You’re saying it’s like a portable hole in D&D, right?”
Spider had spent far too much of his youth and early adulthood gaming, and knew what she meant. “Yeah. Like that. Put time machine inside. Fiddle with it from outside. If time machine goes boom, no damage outside. Everybody happy. Well, except the owner, depending on his insurance.”
Malaria nodded, tapping the end of her stylus against her jaw. “All right, then. One Bat Cave, coming right up.”
“Thanks. It’s really no big deal. Mostly.”
“I didn’t hear that, sir. I really didn’t.”
“Hey, you get to sit out here, with all these solid concrete walls between you and the bomb. Spare a thought for me and Charlie.”
“You just said you’ll be fine. I believe you used the word ‘teleoperate’ in a meaningful way.”
“We still have to put the unit inside the Bat Cave and get it set up. That could be a bit iffy.”
“It doesn’t bother you?”
“Yes, it bothers me. It bothers me lots.”
“You look pretty calm about the whole thing.”
“What choice do we have?”
“What choice?” she said. “What about the choice to not take the bloody thing?”
“And leave the ‘bloody thing’ with its idiot owner? You think that’s a good plan?”
“I think it might be time for my annual vacation, sir.”
“You haven’t been here long enough for annual vacation.”
“Shit. I really need this job, too.”
“Yeah,” Spider said. “Me, too.”
They reached one of those moments when there was nothing further to say. “Well,” Malaria said eventually. “Best get to calling this James guy, huh? One Bat Cave, please. Hold the fries.”
Spider nodded encouragingly. “How long ago did my wife call?”
“Um, the last time was, let’s see, nineteen minutes. She sounded kind of all worked up.”
Spider muttered under his breath. “I’ll be in my office. Thanks. You’re doing a good job.”
The phone went off again. “Time Machines Repaired While-U-Wait. Malaria speaking.” There was a pause. Spider had a feeling he’d best hang around. Sure
enough, Malaria waved him back. She whispered to him, her hand over her phone patch, “It’s her again.”
“I’ll take it in my office.”
“Check,” she said, and then to Mrs. Webb, “Just putting you through now.”
In his office at last he felt, for the first time today, that he could relax for a moment and decompress a little. Instead of a fixed desk he had a nifty bit of intelligent furniture that, depending on what you needed it for, could be configured as a desk, or as a bed, or a couch, or some interesting combination of all three. Theoretically, and according to the sales pitch you got when you were thinking of buying one, you could make the thing transform into all these different configurations using nothing more than a wireless remote. In practice you actually had to manhandle various panels and sections. This was so annoying that Spider generally only swapped it between desk mode and bed mode. Right now it was a bed, and he collapsed into it with the sort of loud, grunting sigh that men start to make once they reach middle age. He lay there a moment in the blissful silence, trying not to think about how much he hated time machines. Such thinking was a pathway to madness and stomach ulcers.
He touched his phone patch. “Molly, hi—”
“Oh, finally! Where the hell have you been all day?”
“Lovely to hear from you, too, dear,” he said — and the sad thing was that it actually was good to hear from her. Her voice, he loved her voice. It had a sort of lilting, even musical quality to it, even when she was yelling at him. It was one of the things that had attracted him to her, years ago. He sighed.
“The bloody system’s on the fritz again, can you pop round and have a look at it?”
“The upgrade didn’t go so well?”
“Upgrade?” She laughed caustically. “At this point in time the thing won’t even boot, for God’s sake. I’m doing what I can on my watchtop, but it’s not the same. I need bandwidth and I need it now.”
He remembered buying her that watch. It was engraved on the back, Forever yours, love, Al. That in itself showed how much he’d loved her. Nobody ever called Spider “Al,” except Molly. It was short for “Aloysius.” He let her get away with it, even though he hated that name perhaps even more than he hated time travel. It was the kind of name that got a kid beaten up at school every day, that made a kid want to quit school — and he had been that kid. He could have killed his parents. They told him it was a lovely, traditional family name. Not that he was bitter, of course.
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