by Peter Ward
“Come on,” Tim said, holding out his hand. “You’re blatantly hiding something.”
“And wh-what makes you say that?” Winterbottom said.
“Wh-What makes me say that?” Tim mimicked, trying not to laugh. “Listen to yourself! You can barely get your words out properly! And the way you walked through the arch was just pathetic …”
Winterbottom looked over at Geoff and Nestor, both of whom were nodding in agreement.
“It was pretty crap,” Geoff concurred.
“Fine!” Winterbottom snapped, reaching into his pocket. “It was only a bloody personal stereo, for goodness sake!” He slapped the stereo into Tim’s hand and stormed off towards the paradox-scanning facility.
Geoff had forgotten just how boiling it was in the paradox-scanning facility—it was so hot you probably could have fried bacon in midair. He was sweating to such an extent that wiping his brow was fast becoming a futile exercise, like turning on the windscreen wipers after driving your car into a swimming pool. Tim had evidently thought ahead, as he had brought a large bottle of water with him.
“Right, we all know how this works,” Tim said, pacing in front of the three Time Reps like some sort of drill sergeant. “Step into the beam of light, wait for it to turn green, and proceed to the departure chamber. Simple as that.” Behind him, the thick beam of white light shone down from the ceiling, waiting for its first subject.
“Wait,” Winterbottom said. “What happens after we get back? Will we ever hear from you again?”
“Absolutely,” Tim said, taking a large gulp of water. “We’ll be working round the clock to straighten this out—you can count on that. Who would like to go first?”
“I’ll go,” Winterbottom volunteered, much to Geoff’s surprise. “Might as well get it out of the way.” He stepped up into the beam and stood still as the light enveloped his body. A few moments later he was cleared to travel.
“1889, here I come,” he said, sounding about as enthusiastic as a child who had just been given a peanut as their main Christmas present. He stepped down from the scanning pedestal and made his way through to the departure chamber.
“You’re next, Nestor,” Tim said. He motioned the Greek philosopher to step forward, taking another deep swig of water.
“Me?” Nestor said, stepping back. “I was hoping to go last. He who goes last …”
“I want Geoff to go last,” he said, interrupting what Geoff assumed to be a sentence most worthy of never being finished.
Nestor reluctantly shuffled forward and stepped into the light. Within seconds the beam turned bright green, as if the computer wanted to get rid of him as quickly as everyone else did.
“So,” Tim said, watching as Nestor disappeared down the same corridor as Winterbottom. “I guess it’s just you to go, Geoff.”
“I guess,” Geoff replied, stepping up into the beam of light. As before, the beam was wonderfully cool.
“So, what have you made of your first day?” Tim said, looking at his watch. The scan seemed to be taking a little longer than usual.
“Well, it’s certainly turned out differently to how I expected,” Geoff shivered. “When I woke up this morning, the only unusual thing I thought I’d be doing was the laundry.”
Suddenly Geoff felt very hot again.
The light had turned green.
Time to go home.
Fourteen
Geoff had only been back home for a few minutes, but he soon began to realize just how much he’d missed the little quirks of 23 Woodview Gardens, the small comforts of the house that he’d taken for granted. The second he walked through the front door, he was instantly reassured by the faintly nauseating “house smell,” he smiled to himself upon noticing the old pair of socks that were inexplicably draped over the banisters, and he even felt a twinge of nostalgia at the familiar sound of the toilet flushing. The future may have had its cheering crowds, fantastic technology and improved quality of life, but did he know exactly where all the creaky floorboards were in the future? No. Could he walk around all day in his bathrobe in the future? No. If the future really wanted to win him over, it was going to have to significantly up its game.
Geoff sat down on the sofa, kicked off his shoes, and stared vacantly at the ceiling for a few moments. It had certainly been one hell of a day: He witnessed the extinction of the dinosaurs, traveled into the future, been treated like a celebrity, spoke to people from as far back as ancient times, been brutally attacked, and lost his memory. More unusual that that, he’d even been for a job interview.
It was normally after a grueling day like this that Geoff liked to reward himself by doing something constructive, something that made him use his brain, something like playing Space Commando for ten hours straight. Unfortunately, his right hand had a few objections to this idea, mainly due to the fact that it had just had a large knife thrust through it and could no more hold a joypad than it could a conversation. One thing was for sure—he certainly wouldn’t be practicing his skills with the Death Bringer today.
This left Geoff with a slight dilemma. What was he supposed to do if he couldn’t play computer games? He stared at the ceiling again as if the sight of a bare lightbulb would somehow inspire him to find a new source of amusement. Nothing. He picked up a nearby magazine and flicked through it. There was an article about the top ten superfoods, an interview with someone he’d never heard of, and a pullout section on subwoofers. Geoff tossed the magazine to the floor and thought about the onomatopoeic qualities of the word “woofer” for ten minutes, wondering if there was perhaps a more appropriate word to describe a low-frequency loudspeaker.
Within a couple of hours, Geoff was bored out of his mind. He’d tried to pass the time by making himself a tea, watching a bit of television, and even doing some tidying, but it was no good; after everything that had happened in the last twenty-four hours, returning back to the house, pairing all his socks, and watching Deal or No Deal was somewhat of an anticlimax. And the contestant only won ten quid.
It began to cross Geoff’s mind that he may never actually see anyone from the future ever again despite Tim’s assurances to the contrary. What if they really couldn’t fix the supercomputer without Eric? What if Mr. Knight couldn’t persuade the politicians to let them resume business? He remembered what Ruth had said about what his life would have been like if they hadn’t intervened: He’d have been sitting in front of a computer trying to work out how to program his own game before giving up and drifting between mundane temp jobs for the rest of his life. Geoff felt a little weak at the knees at this thought. Having caught a brief glimpse of what it was like to be a Time Rep, was he doomed to being relegated to that way of life? Would he be forced to go back to being the old Geoffrey Stamp? The “insignificant nobody?” The man less important to the world than certain types of mushroom? And which mushrooms were more important than him anyway? Probably those bloody shiitake ones that everyone was going on about these days. He’d have to ask Tim if he ever saw him again.
This was ridiculous. Not only could Geoff feel himself spiraling into an ever more depressing chain of thought, but he was now at the stage where he was getting competitive with shiitake mushrooms. If Fate was going to be kind to him, it needed to provide some sort of interesting distraction at this difficult time, something to help him take his mind off things: a telephone call; a gas explosion; a meteorite falling through the ceiling; anything. Unfortunately for Geoff, Fate must have been off playing pool at that precise moment because there wasn’t so much as a fly buzzing around to help him take his mind off things.
The thing that frustrated Geoff most of all was the fact that whilst he was here in the twenty-first century watching daytime television, he had no way of knowing what was going on in the future, and even if he did know, he would be powerless to help matters. He imagined Tim and Ruth frantically running around at this very moment, trying desperately to piece together what had happened at last night’
s party. Mr. Knight was probably busy too: managing the media, speaking to senior politicians, and negotiating conditions under which they could get things up and running again. In the meantime, the only problem Geoff needed to deal with was the fact that he was running low on tea bags. Unless the trip to the shops involved some sort of spectacular car chase, it was fairly safe to assume that this problem wasn’t going to pose quite the same excitement.
Perhaps he should call Zoë. He was pretty sure she wasn’t being sarcastic when she suggested that they should try and meet up sometime soon, and he very much wanted to see a familiar face. Maybe they could wander down to the lake again like they’d used to do in the old days. There was just one problem: whenever she saw him, she always asked him if he’d “found another job yet.” What was he supposed to say? He didn’t really want to lie and say no because this was what he always said. On top of that, he was still thinking about what Darren Bell had taunted him with this morning. Would Zoë really have any interest in him if she thought he was just a “jobless waster?” Probably not. He needed to be a somebody, and a somebody with a job, at that. On the other hand, he couldn’t exactly say that he did have a job because he’d then have to explain that he couldn’t tell her what the job was, and by the way, he may not have it anymore anyway because he was attacked by a group of people trying to change the course of history. No, this would probably sound a little bit crazy to most people, and although Geoff wasn’t exactly an expert on women, he was pretty sure that sounding like a lunatic wasn’t the best way of endearing himself to the opposite sex.
Geoff picked up the phone and stared at it for a while to the point where it started beeping impatiently. Just as he had plucked up the courage to dial Zoë’s number, there was a loud knock at the door. Slightly startled at the interruption, Geoff hung up the phone and went to see who it was. He wasn’t expecting anyone.
He opened the door. It was Tim.
“Oh,” said Geoff, a little surprised.
“Oh?” said Tim. “What do you mean, ‘Oh’?”
“I wasn’t expecting … I mean, I didn’t …”
“You haven’t seen me for two weeks and all you have to say is ‘oh?’”
“Two weeks?” Geoff said, stepping aside to let Tim in. “What are you talking about, two weeks?”
“Sorry,” Tim said, shrugging off his coat. “I keep forgetting. It hasn’t been two weeks for you, has it? I suppose you’ve only just got back?”
“Yes,” Geoff said, shutting the door. “Couple of hours ago.”
“I see,” Tim replied, walking into the kitchen. “Well, it’s been two weeks since I last saw you. Two very stressful weeks.” He filled the kettle up with water and turned it on.
“So you managed to sort everything out?” Geoff said. “You caught my attacker, fixed the algorithm, and all that?”
Tim looked at Geoff in silence for a few moments.
“Not exactly,” he said.
“Pardon?” Geoff said, blinking a little bit more than necessary in surprise.
“Not exactly,” Tim repeated.
Geoff sat down at the kitchen table and thought seriously about banging his head against it.
“By ‘not exactly,’” he said, opting to restrain himself, “do you mean, ‘no’?”
“We’ve got a few leads on your attacker, but we still don’t know who it was for sure,” Tim said, getting the milk out of the fridge. “As for the supercomputer, we haven’t been able to fix it. Eric didn’t leave any notes on what he was doing in case they fell into the wrong hands, and as far as we know, he didn’t manage to explain the loophole to anyone before he died.”
“So what the hell are you doing here?” Geoff said. “Isn’t it dangerous?”
“Yes and no,” Tim said, waiting for the kettle to finish boiling. “We have a plan.”
Geoff reconsidered the option of banging his head against the table again. He didn’t like plans. In his experience, a plan was just a quick way of describing something that wasn’t actually going to happen. When he was thirteen, he’d planned to become a rock star. When he was on his paper round, he’d planned to ask Zoë out on a date. What he soon discovered was that plans always failed to take into account a certain obstacle that prevented you from achieving the desired result. In the case of him planning to be a rock star, he hadn’t considered the fact that most people could get a better song out of a lettuce than he could get out of a musical instrument, and in the case of him asking Zoë out on a date, he hadn’t considered the fact that he was a complete coward. No, whether it was best laid plans or worst laid plans, Geoff always found it hard to believe that things would go exactly as expected. He was even suspicious of the plans for next door’s conservatory.
“I don’t like this,” Geoff said. “You know how I feel about plans …”
“That’s because your plans are always stupid,” Tim said, dropping the last two tea bags into a couple of mugs and adding the milk. “This isn’t like the time you planned to become an extra in Star Wars by sending George Lucas a photo of you molding your hair into the shape of a Star Destroyer. This plan has actually been thought through.”
“I still can’t believe that didn’t work,” Geoff said. “I even got the shield generators right …”
Tim topped the mugs up with boiling water, saying nothing. Geoff got the feeling that he wanted to talk about more pressing matters.
“So what’s your brilliant plan?” Geoff said. “And does it involve me being in any danger?”
“A bit,” Tim said, casually spooning the tea bags out of the mugs and passing one to Geoff.
“Sorry?” Geoff said. “Did you say ‘a bit’?”
“The plan is use to you as bait. Flush out the attacker.”
“Bait?” Geoff said. He was disappointed that he wasn’t sipping his tea at that precise moment because he would have liked to have melodramatically spat a mouthful across the table to demonstrate just how shocked he was at what Tim had said.
“The way we see it, whatever these people are trying to do to change history has something to do with you.”
“Me?”
“We don’t know what it is, but we know there’s a connection: the hooded figure watching you in 1666, the man who attacked you in Eric’s lab—everything seems to revolve around you for some reason.”
“I don’t understand,” Geoff said. “What possible …”
“And another thing,” Tim interrupted. “Don’t you think it’s worrying that you’re not dead?”
“No,” Geoff said. “In fact, I feel quite good about that—not being dead is excellent.”
“I didn’t mean it like that. But think about it—for all your attacker knew, Eric could have told you how to fix the algorithm before he died. So why did they risk letting you live? And why did they stab you through the hand?”
“You tell me,” Geoff shrugged, making sure to sip his tea this time in case the next part of this plan involved him dangling from a rope or something.
“Well, we have a theory,” Tim said, adjusting his glasses. “We think that you were meant to be sent back here as some sort of Trojan horse.”
“A Trojan horse?”
Tim nodded. “It’s the only thing that would explain why you weren’t killed when you discovered Eric. We believe that whoever stabbed you through the hand wanted you alive. They wanted you to come back to the twenty-first century so you could change something for them.”
“Change something?”
“That’s right. Change something without even realizing it.”
“But that doesn’t make sense,” Geoff said. “If I was going to change something, even without realizing it, wouldn’t your ‘supercomputer’ have picked it up? The light went green, remember?”
“Precisely,” Tim said. “That’s why I’m here. Since history hasn’t changed, Mr. Knight has convinced the Defence Minister that whoever these people are, they must still have some unfinished busi
ness with you. So we’re resuming holidays to all time periods in the hope that we can tempt your attacker to come looking for you in the twenty-first century. When he does, we’ll be waiting, and we’ll be able to put an end to this fiasco once and for all.”
“Well, it’s a superb plan,” Geoff said. “Truly superb. But I still have a small issue with the part where you use me as bait.”
“That’s not part of the plan,” Tim said. “That’s the whole plan!”
“OK then. I have a small issue with … the whole plan.”
“Why?”
“Don’t you think it’s a little dangerous? You’re talking about just letting some maniac waltz right up to me and stab me through the other hand, or break my legs, or do whatever it is they should have done to me in the first place!”
“Relax,” Tim said. “Everything will be fine.”
“Relax?” Geoff said. “How am I supposed to relax?”
“If we’re lucky, they won’t even make it past the paradox-scanning facility. And even if they do, I’ll be watching you at all times. You’ll be reasonably safe.”
Geoff took another sip of his tea. He didn’t like the use of the word “reasonably” in that last sentence just like he wouldn’t have liked the use of the word “acid” if he was asked, “How about a nice cup of acid?”
“I just can’t believe that the Defence Minister is really happy about all this,” Geoff said. “What does he have to say about using me as bait?”
“Oh, he’s totally on board,” Tim replied.
“On board what?” Geoff said. “The Titanic?”
“Look, pull yourself together,” Tim snapped. “This is our only chance to find out who’s behind all this, so stop worrying, finish your tea, and get your coat. We’re scheduled to meet the first group of tourists in Trafalgar Square in less than an hour, and your attacker could be one of them. I need you on your toes.”
