by Jason Ayres
That was three months ago and since then they’d spent most of their evenings together. They had clicked: same interests, same sense of humour. It was an easy relationship to be in.
Alice lectured in Astronomy. The university had funded the building of its own observatory during the past decade, and Alice was one of the privileged few with unlimited access to it. She’d spent the morning tracking the comet’s progress towards Earth and now she had something distinctly worrying on her mind.
Josh could see straightaway from the look on her face that she hadn’t summoned him here for fun. “What’s up?” he asked.
“Come and have a look at this,” she said. She moved over to a large touch screen set into the wall with a map of the solar system on it. “I’ve been tracking the path of the comet as it approaches Earth,” she said. “And I’ve discovered something extremely worrying.”
“But the comet isn’t going to pass within a million miles of Earth, is it?” asked Josh. “You said so yourself last night.”
“No it isn’t – you can see here.” She touched the screen, zooming in on Earth. “This is Earth’s orbit, over the next few days.” The screen showed Earth spinning through space on a loop, backwards and forwards, one day per second.
“Now here is the projected path of the comet.” She touched the screen again and the comet appeared. It passed by harmlessly, some distance away on the screen.
“OK, so like you said, it’s going to miss us,” remarked Josh. “So where’s the problem?”
“I’ll show you,” she said. She cleared the screen, and started again. “OK here is the Earth’s orbit. And this time, instead of the comet, I’m going to add Asteroid Apophis which is also due to pass close by in the next couple of days.”
She overlaid the asteroid onto the screen and ran the loop again. As with the comet, the asteroid passed by, missing Earth by the projected distance of 18,000 miles, as had always been predicted.
“I still don’t see the problem,” said Josh.
“This is the problem,” replied Alice. She cleared the screen again and added just the comet and the asteroid. This time they intersected exactly.
“Are you saying that the asteroid and the comet are on collision course?” asked Josh.
“That’s exactly what I’m saying,” replied Alice. “And if my calculations are correct, we won’t have long to wait to see it. It’s going to happen around 9.30pm this evening.”
“So how come no one else has noticed this before?” asked Josh. “There are observatories all over the world which are much more advanced than this. Surely they must have spotted it.”
“Would they, though? Everyone’s been comparing the comet’s path in relation to Earth and the asteroid’s path in relation to Earth. Maybe no one’s thought of putting them all together. Plus there’s the fact that the comet came in quite close to Mars a couple of days ago, and the gravitational pull of that planet has altered its course slightly away from what was being predicted. Prior to that, it would have missed the asteroid by some margin.
“I thought astronomers had all these measurements down to a T and would have known that was going to happen,” said Josh.
“Only with objects we know about. This comet is new; we’ve not had time to get a proper fix on it. It’s not like, say, Halley’s Comet, which comes around every 76 years. We’ve been tracking that for centuries.”
“So if what you’re saying is true, what are the implications?” asked Josh.
“Possibly something more horrible than I dare imagine,” she replied, “but I don’t think we should speculate at this stage. One thing’s for sure, though, we need to have our eyes on the skies at half past nine tonight.”
Josh could see the worry in her eyes. She was a brilliant astronomer, and if she was worried then things were potentially very serious. He still couldn’t get over the question, though, as to why she had spotted the potential collision and no one else had.
In fact, plenty of others had. In major observatories across many nations of the world, astronomers were coming to the same conclusion. On informing the authorities of their find, however, the rhetoric was invariably the same.
In the interests of national security and to avoid panic, no one was to know. In America, Russia, China and all the other major world powers, a total news blackout was imposed, at least until after the event.
The really worrying thing for everyone involved was that, even with all of the most advanced equipment available, no one could precisely predict exactly what would happen after the collision. But they would not have long until they found out.
Chapter Four
Kaylee was playing with her god-daughter, Jessica, when she heard the key turn in the lock of the front door. They were playing a game of Scrabble, which Jess had received as a birthday present the previous weekend. Despite having only just turned nine, Jess was more than holding her own. She’d clearly inherited her father’s literary prowess.
Kaylee was like a big sister to Jess. They spent a lot of time together. They could easily have been mistaken for sisters, even though Kaylee was old enough to be her mother. Both had long, blonde hair and piercing blue eyes. Kaylee and Jess’s mother, Hannah, had been best friends ever since they’d met during that crazy week when The Time Bubble had been discovered.
Hannah was dedicated to her career, and as a single parent often had difficulty juggling her work with caring for her daughter. But Kaylee was happy to help. Working from home a lot of the time as she did, her days were flexible enough that she could pick Jess up from school most of the time when Hannah was working.
She loved looking after Jess, and had begun to feel more than a little broody. It felt like a good time to be starting a family. She and Charlie were happily settled; they both had good jobs and she felt they were at the right age to do it. She had broached the idea to Charlie a couple of months ago and he’d been all for it. Not only did he love the idea of fatherhood, but when she suggested there would be a lot of extra sex into the bargain that sealed the deal. So she came off the pill and waited for nature to take its course.
There was no positive news yet, but she had a good stock of pregnancy tests in her top drawer in the bedroom and took one every week. Tonight was the night and she was eagerly looking forward to it. She had a really good feeling about it: she just sensed that it was going to be good news.
“Hi, Mum!” said Jess excitedly. “I’m winning! Look, I got a triple word score!”
“I never was much good at this game,” commented Kaylee.
Hannah was tired after a long day at work. She had been the D.I. in charge of the local police station ever since Kent had retired, and the never-ending amount of “paperwork” she had to do kept her at her desk most of the day.
It actually involved very little paper these days, but the old term was still used. Despite everything being very hi-tech and fast now, it seemed the administration increased exponentially to cancel any gains from the new technology.
Despite her tiredness, she immediately perked up when she saw her daughter. Jess had always been her number one priority whatever crisis came up at work. Seeing her on a daily basis filled her with joy. She was also a constant reminder of Jess’s father, long absent from their lives, but never far from either of their thoughts. All being well, the day was fast approaching when they would see him again.
Hannah had a relationship which was unusual to say the least. In fact, as far as she knew, in the history of the Earth, it was quite possibly unique. The man she loved was a time traveller and she hadn’t seen him since June 2024, which had been an achingly long time. Jess was only four at the time, but the memory of the night when she’d last seen her father was etched indelibly on her mind.
Peter was trapped, by his own design, in The Time Bubble, in a railway underpass constructed during the building of the HS2 railway line. He’d been suffering from an incurable illness and had decided to jump forward in time to a point where a cure was available.
That time had come some four years ago. Unfortunately, Peter had already gone into The Time Bubble and was stuck there for a fixed amount of time. As far as she knew, there was no way of altering that, so she and Jess had no option other than to wait it out. He was due to return the following January, and they were already counting down the days.
When Jess was very small, Hannah had told her all about her time-travelling dad. She accepted it all as quite normal and just assumed it was something that all dads did. When Jess told the grown-ups at the nursery about it, they joined in the joke. After all there were plenty of single mothers who took their children there. Jess’s tale was just a little more imaginative than those of some of the other children with absent fathers.
As she got older she came to realise that a time-travelling dad was an unusual thing and to heed Hannah’s advice not to talk to anyone about it. Unlike some of her friends at school who had lost touch with their dads completely, she knew that hers was a good man: he had not run out on his family, and would one day return.
“Thanks for taking care of her again today,” said Hannah.
“You’re welcome, anytime. You know how much I love looking after her,” replied Kaylee. “You never know, you might be babysitting for me soon.”
“Ooh, exciting!” said Hannah.
“Are you going to have a baby, Kaylee?” asked Jess.
“Well, no news yet, but fingers crossed.”
“Does Charlie have to put the baby in your tummy?” asked Jess.
Kaylee and Hannah looked at each other, not sure quite what to say. Jess continued. “It’s OK, Mum. I know how babies are made. Nathan in Year 6 told me.”
“Did he now?” replied Hannah, wondering who this Nathan was who was corrupting her daughter. “Oh well, I guess you have to find out about these things sooner or later. Perhaps we had better have a little talk.”
“She probably knows more than you do,” said Kaylee. “You know what kids are like these days. Anyway, I am going to have to go. Charlie will be home soon and I want to be there when he gets back.”
“So he can put the baby in your tummy?” asked Jess.
“Jess, really!” exclaimed Hannah. “What are you like?”
“It might already be in there,” said Kaylee. “I might find out tonight.”
“Well, make sure you ring me and tell me!” said Hannah. “I want to be the first to know. Remember, you were the first person I told when I fell with Jess.”
“You will be,” replied Kaylee. “After Charlie, of course.”
Hannah thought back to the day she found out she was pregnant, almost ten years ago. “Well, one thing is for sure, it’s not going to be as big a shock to him as it was when I told Peter. Do you remember? He was in The Time Bubble when I found out. When he came out, the first thing he saw was me standing in front of him, 37 weeks to the good. You should have seen the look on his face!”
They could have carried on chatting and laughing all night, but Kaylee was eager to get off home to see Charlie. She made her farewells and set off on the walk home. Her route took her back through the railway tunnel where she’d once been trapped in The Time Bubble for two days and everyone had thought she’d been abducted.
That had been over a decade ago, but it still gave her goose pimples every time she walked through there. It was strange to think as she reached the exact spot near the centre of the tunnel that Peter was in there somewhere, frozen in time, until it was time to reappear.
It was quiet in the tunnel. It always was. Ten years on, the HS2 project was still not complete. It had been a complete embarrassment to successive governments. Some questioned whether it would ever be completed and if it would even be needed if it was. Holographic conferencing was rapidly doing away with the need for business travel.
She emerged into the warm afternoon sunshine and into the new estate. The cherry trees that lined the streets of the estate were in full bloom, filling her with the joys of spring as she admired the pretty pink flowers. She turned right into their road and saw that his car was just turning onto the drive.
Charlie hadn’t had the best of days. His positive mood of the morning had evaporated. Some days he really began to tire of the office lifestyle. He’d sat through over two hours of listening to his boss coming out with every cliché in the marketing buzzword handbook during the morning meeting. He was fed up with hearing about “game-changers” and “thinking outside the box”.
When the boss wasn’t rambling on, various sycophants were trying to outdo each other by seeing who could ask the cleverest question. Their only goal in life seemed to be climbing the corporate ladder. That didn’t really appeal to Charlie. He was good at his job and the opportunities were there if he wanted to pursue them, but he wasn’t sure that he did. Perhaps it was time to consider a change of career.
His mood brightened considerably when he saw her walking up the road, the pale pink dress she was wearing matching almost perfectly the cherry blossom on the trees behind her. She still took his breath away, just like she had done every day since he’d first clapped eyes on her in reception class.
He saw the smile on her face as she came towards him and thought not for the first time how amazingly lucky he had been. If the others wanted to stay in the office late every night to further their careers, that was up to them. Charlie knew where he wanted to be.
“I’m glad you’re home,” she said. “Tonight’s the night.”
They kissed and went into the house.
Chapter Five
Lauren was making the final preparations for the weekly karaoke night at The Red Lion. There wasn’t a great deal that needed to be done, if truth be told. Long gone were the days of DJs risking their backs lugging in heavy speakers, huge cases of discs and all manner of other bulky equipment.
Everything was pretty much built in – the speakers were embedded within the walls and everything was controlled from one central touch screen on the wall.
There was no need to buy songs anymore – everything was done via an on-demand subscription service linked up to the internet. From the panel on the wall, Lauren could instantly call up any song from out of over a quarter of a million songs stored in the cloud. Over a century of popular music was available at her fingertips.
About the only piece of equipment still needed was the wireless microphones, and, as long as she had a good supply of batteries to hand, there was very little that could go wrong.
That karaoke survived as it did in The Red Lion was a bit of an anachronism. Karaoke had come to be seen in general as a rather naff activity: the sort of thing that was OK in a three-star, all-inclusive hotel on the Spanish islands along with the bingo and kiddies’ disco, but long past its sell-by date back home.
Very few pubs did it anymore. The only reason the Red Lion did was that for some unexplained reason it did pull in a crowd on a Thursday night. Kent personally hated it, but he couldn’t argue with the takings coming in through the till. He’d tried dropping it at one point and replacing it with a quiz, but there had been uproar from the regulars.
After a couple of weeks of finding the takings down by several hundred pounds, he’d had a change of heart and reinstated it. He claimed this was in the interests of “listening to his customers”, conveniently neglecting to mention the financial side of things.
So every Thursday at 8.30pm, the diehard karaoke crowd descended upon the pub. They had been coming week in, week out for a good couple of decades now. There was a large round table at the back of the pub, close to where the action took place, known as “karaoke table”.
At least twelve people could fit around it and it was invariably full by the time things kicked off. A more diverse group of people you couldn’t expect to find gathered in one place. They ranged from students up to pensioners, with people from all other walks of life in-between.
Lauren was a natural at hosting the entertainment. She oozed confidence and charisma and always caught the crowd’s attention. She dressed to impre
ss. Tonight she was wearing a tight, pink, cropped top exposing her pierced belly button, and some tight denim shorts that she hoped some lucky man, or maybe a woman if one took her fancy, would be peeling off her later tonight.
As always, she got the show underway by performing the first song. As befitted her nature, she always went for something a little suggestive, and tonight it was that old Madonna classic, Like a Virgin.
She’d seen the old video of the song and did her best to cavort around on the stage like Madonna had on the canal boat, many years before Lauren had been born. As she reached the chorus and the words appeared on the huge screen behind the stage, she got a few ironic cheers. She was pretty sure she also heard someone shout out “bullshit” from the karaoke table. She was enjoying every minute. She had always loved being the centre of attention.
As usual, the names of the singers were coming up on her touch screen with the songs they wanted to sing. In the past, people had written their names down on a list. Now it was all done remotely from their various gadgets. She groaned when she saw the name of the first singer to come up.
Alec was a proud Scotsman of indeterminate age. All anyone knew was that it seemed as if he’d been living in the town forever. Every week without fail he came to the karaoke, and every week without fail he performed the same song by The Proclaimers.
He had resisted all attempts to persuade him to sing other songs over the years, so for approximately the thousandth time he stepped up to the stage to perform it.
Between songs, Lauren generally mixed and flirted with the crowd. Kent and Debbie were well aware of what Lauren got up to, but they weren’t bothered in the slightest. She was a huge asset to the pub and they knew it.
