by Jason Ayres
Peter’s younger namesake, known to all as Pete, and his sister Sophie were on the large lawn area that lay beyond the patio. They were playing swingball, ever popular even in the hi-tech 21st century. Jess immediately headed over to join them.
“G’day, all,” announced Peter, in a very poor attempt at an Australian accent.
“G’day, sport,” replied Josh, mimicking him. They had a lot of catching up to do. It was the first time that Josh and the others had seen Peter and Hannah since they had left for their trip down under, over six months previously.
Jess had been a frequent visitor during that time, though, particularly recently. After an extremely busy year’s teaching, she was enjoying a long and relaxing summer holiday, spending a lot of time with Pete and Sophie.
“Good to see you’ve got the beer under control,” said Peter. “Can you make use of some of this?” he asked, placing the wine carrier on the table.
Kaylee picked out a bottle and examined it, a very acceptable-looking sparkling Australian white wine.
“Duty-free?” she enquired.
“Err, no, Sainsbury’s, actually,” replied Peter. “It didn’t seem worth lugging the stuff back from Australia when you can buy it just as cheaply here. And our suitcases were brimming with souvenirs. But it’s the thought that counts.”
“I’m sure we could have managed without some of your souvenirs,” remarked Hannah. “He insisted on buying one of those ridiculous hats with the corks on it, amongst other things.”
“It seemed like a good idea at the time,” reflected Peter. “In fact, I could do with it now,” he added, as he swatted away a nosy wasp that was hanging around him. “There are all sorts of nasty insects in Australia, but none that bother me as much as these bloody things. They ruin the summer!”
“Hey, Peter, come and have a look at this,” called Charlie from the barbecue area, over in the corner of the patio. He was keen to show off his latest acquisition.
“Let me grab a beer first,” he replied, but Kaylee had already twisted the top off one and was passing it to him as he spoke. “Ever the perfect hostess,” he complimented her.
“You’re welcome, sir,” she joked, in reference to the days, so many years ago, when he had been her English teacher.
As Josh wandered over to the lawn to catch up with the younger generation, Peter moved to join Charlie at the grill. He certainly seemed to be enjoying his chef’s role, and had dressed the part accordingly.
He was wearing a traditional chef’s hat and a white apron featuring a cartoon chef holding up a sausage on the end of a fork, advertising “British Sausage Week 2048”.
“Nice apron,” remarked Peter drily. “So, this looks pretty impressive,” he said, casting his eye over Charlie’s revolutionary new barbecue.
“It’s awesome,” said Charlie. “Let me show you a couple of things.” He turned and addressed the barbecue directly.
“Barbie,” he proclaimed, making Peter chuckle. “Can you give me a status update on the sausages in zone 3 please?”
“Certainly, Charlie,” announced a seductive female voice. “The sausages in zone 3 will be cooked to perfection in another 3 minutes and 34 seconds. Would you like me to alert you when they are ready?”
“That would be fantastic,” replied Charlie.
“You’re welcome, Charlie,” came the reply. “And would you like me to get you another beer? I can see that you have only 9% remaining in your current bottle.”
“Yes please,” said Charlie. “You really do think of everything.”
A tray slid out smoothly from the refrigerated base of the machine holding a fresh bottle of lager, droplets of moisture glistening on the outside. It reminded Peter of how the old CD trays used to slide out of the stereo systems he’d owned in his youth.
As he watched, a robotic arm emerged from the side of the machine, efficiently removed the top from the bottle, and handed it to Charlie.
“Thank you, Barbie,” said Charlie. “That will be all.”
“You’re welcome,” replied the machine. “And, by the way, your burgers are now at the optimum time for flipping.”
“That is pretty impressive,” commented Peter. “But seriously – did you have to call it Barbie?”
“Just my little idea of a joke,” replied Charlie. “And it’s not an ‘it’, it’s a ‘she’. You don’t want to offend her.”
“Well, I’m glad the sausages are nearly ready. I’m famished,” said Peter. “What sort are they?”
“Gloucester Old Spots,” replied Charlie. “We get them from a local farm up the road.”
“Fantastic,” replied Peter. “Can’t wait.”
As they continued chatting, Hannah was enthusing to Alice and Kaylee about her trip down under. They had cracked open a bottle of the Australian fizz and with all the preparations done, were enjoying a catch-up as they waited for the meat to be cooked.
“Honestly, you wouldn’t believe what they are doing down there,” said Hannah. “Uluru City is like something out of a science-fiction film.”
“I’ve seen plenty of it,” remarked Kaylee. “You posted enough eye-cam footage while you were there.”
Australia had become a major world power by the mid-21st century. It had been relatively unscathed by the Black Winter that had devastated all of the Northern Hemisphere’s major economies.
While those countries had spent years recovering, Australia had been developing technologies to enable it to fully realise the potential of that great untapped land mass that was the Outback.
Thousands of square miles of scorched desert land had been paved over with the most advanced solar panels yet developed. A major irrigation and desalination scheme carried water from the Southern Ocean hundreds of miles inland.
The power and the water made construction possible on a scale never previously imagined. In just two decades, barely a dozen miles from the famous landmark once known as Ayers Rock, Uluru City had grown out of almost nothing. The rapid construction of glittering skyscrapers, 7-star hotels, and artificially created lakes and beaches was reminiscent of the growth of Dubai in the early part of the century.
With the hypersonic flights making nowhere on Earth more than four hours distant, it had quickly become a playground for the rich and famous.
“I’ve got to admit,” said Alice, as she listened to Hannah excitedly relaying all the details, “that I’m well jealous. But how did you afford all this? I’ve heard that it’s £20,000 a night to stay in the hotels there.”
“That’s the 7-star hotels,” replied Hannah. “We’re not that flushed. We stayed in a 5-star, but it was still absolutely luxurious – gorgeous bathrobes, expensive toiletries in the bathroom, chocolates on the pillow, that sort of thing.”
“Was it really hot?” asked Alice.
Kaylee, the climate expert, answered before Hannah could speak. “It shouldn’t have been. They went in the middle of the Southern Hemisphere winter, so it wouldn’t have been scorching. I would imagine it was the perfect time to go, probably about the same as it is here now.”
“It was about 25 degrees every day,” confirmed Hannah. “The hotel had a gorgeous beach and pool, all free-formed to look like the sea, even though we were hundreds of miles from the coast. It even had artificial tides and waves. The whole place is simply amazing.”
“If you’d gone in January or February it would have probably been too hot,” remarked Kaylee. “That might not be the case for much longer, though. Do you remember I told you about that climate control project I have been working on? Well a number of wealthy countries, Australia, Qatar and the Emirates, amongst others, have expressed a great deal of interest in investing in the technology.”
“Is controlling the weather really possible?” asked Alice. “To control things on such a vast scale, even by our technological standards seems a bit of a pipe dream to me.”
“You’d be surprised,” replied Kaylee. “They’ve certainly got the money to put behind it. In fact the A
ustralian Government has offered me a job as part of the team heading up the project.”
“Do you think you’ll go?” asked Alice.
“If it was me, I’d jump at the chance,” added Hannah. “I loved every minute of being there. I wish we hadn’t had to come back so soon.”
“I’m still thinking about it,” replied Kaylee. “I’m not sure that Charlie is all that keen.”
The chat was interrupted at that point by Charlie calling across to them: “Food’s ready!”
Kaylee and Alice carried some plates over to Peter and Charlie where they could hear Barbie announcing in her sexiest voice that the sausages were now in prime condition.
“Well, if he doesn’t want to go, he could always stay here and marry the barbecue,” suggested Alice.
“Don’t joke about it,” replied Kaylee, laughing. “He’s obsessed with that thing. Still, at least it’s not an actual robot. I’ve heard some quite unsavoury stories about what certain men get up to with the latest models.”
“Amazing, isn’t it?” said Alice. “All those years that women fought against sexism and now men are turning robots into sex objects instead. How long will it be before we have a robot liberation movement, I wonder?”
“Hey, you guys,” called Charlie impatiently to the others, who were still messing about on the lawn. “Come on, grub’s up.”
Josh, Pete, Sophie and Jess headed over to join the others as Charlie proudly dished up his perfectly cooked food, amid much congratulation from Barbie.
Chapter Three
September 2063
Dan felt disorientated by the strange events that had just occurred, but they were nothing compared to what was to come.
Completely unaware that he was now 22 years in the future, he walked to the far end of the tunnel and began to make his way home.
Wrapped up in his thoughts, initially he didn’t notice the differences in his surroundings. Walking slowly along the tarmac path that led to the housing estate where he lived, his mind was still trying to make some sense of what had occurred over the past few minutes.
The path was just as it had always been, with a row of horse chestnut trees on the right-hand side and the back gardens of the red-brick houses on the left. Everything was reassuringly and solidly as it should be, or was it?
Had he been paying closer attention, he may have noticed that, although the geography was correct, the detail was wrong.
The trees lining the path, built when the railway was constructed in the early part of the century, had now matured. They were much larger than they had been the last time he’d walked this way.
That was the morning of the previous day as far as he was concerned. It had been early spring then and the young trees had barely been showing signs of the new season’s growth. Now they were not only larger, but also in full leaf.
If he had looked a little closer, he would have noticed not only the leaves, but also the green pods, full of ripening conkers ready to fall.
There was a time, back in his early years when a tree full of conkers would have held plenty of attraction, but those days were long behind him. Seasonal changes were lost on Dan, who had no interest in nature and rarely took the time to look around him.
It was only when he made his way into the housing estate that a strange sense that something was amiss began to wash over him.
It was just small things at first, the sorts of things that were always in his peripheral vision but that he never really paid much attention to. However, these things had become lodged in his subconscious over the years and now they began to nag at him.
After walking about halfway down the first street, it suddenly struck him that several of the front doors that he had been walking past for years seemed to have changed colour overnight. In fact, many had been replaced completely, peeling old wood replaced by glass. It was odd that he should suddenly notice that, but his mind quickly found a way to rationalise it.
Perhaps the neighbours had decided to spruce up the neighbourhood. It had certainly needed it. And it probably hadn’t happened overnight. He just hadn’t been paying attention.
Then he noticed the cars. There was definitely something strange going on with them that was not so easy to explain. An ancient and rusting orange camper van had been parked on the drive of the end house in the street for decades. It had never moved to Dan’s knowledge, and had been there for as long as he could remember. It was practically a local landmark, so he noticed straightaway that it had disappeared.
Now it had been replaced by a gleaming new, futuristic-looking BMW of a design he’d never seen before. OK, this was explainable, too. Perhaps the owner had come into some money.
But then he looked around at the other cars parked on the street. They were all unfamiliar models to him. The whole street couldn’t have won the lottery and bought new cars, could they? What was going on?
These were relatively small things compared to what came next. There was no explaining away the huge shock that awaited him as he rounded the corner of the street onto the main road.
Overnight, it seemed that the old estate pub that had stood on the corner for years had completely vanished. Now it was a small block of modern-looking flats.
“Where the fuck has the pub gone?” he blurted out loud, even though there was no one around. “I was only in there last weekend.”
They couldn’t have knocked it down that quickly and rebuilt it, surely? There wouldn’t have been time. He knew that revolutionary new building techniques utilising robots had massively cut construction times, but he’d never heard of something being built in one day before.
The more he looked around the more he felt a growing uneasiness within him. Something wasn’t right here. And now he was talking out loud to himself. What was it that they said about that? It was meant to be the first sign of madness, wasn’t it?
He was exhausted from being up all night and the excessive amount of drink he’d put away at the party was certainly not helping. Yes, that must be it, he concluded, as he struggled to fit together the pieces of this very strange jigsaw puzzle. Clearly he’d overdone it on the booze, and now his mind was playing tricks on him.
All he wanted to do now was get home and get to bed. Everything would make sense again once he was rested.
He passed the site of the now non-existent pub and walked another fifty yards to reach the entrance to his cul-de-sac. This was where he lived in the one-bedroom starter home he referred to as his bachelor pad.
As he turned into the close, the sun was rising in the gap between two pairs of semi-detached houses at the end of the close. He winced at the brightness of the sunlight in his tired eyes, adding to the pain that the incessant noise of the early morning birdsong was already bringing to his ears.
Approaching the house, he noticed that someone had had the impudence to park another brand new car right over his driveway. He didn’t even recognise the make of this one, but the fact that it was red was enough to make him see red. Those were Manchester United’s colours and he hated Man U. “Fucking park over my drive, would you?” he bellowed.
Sensing the opportunity to get back at a random stranger to make him feel better about his own problems, he pulled his house keys from his pocket and scraped one right along the driver’s side door.
“That’ll teach ’em,” he said, though there was still nobody there to hear him. He was talking to himself again, but it didn’t even register this time.
He was half-hoping the car’s owner might have spotted him. He enjoyed a bit of confrontation and felt just in the mood to punch someone after the morning’s events.
But it was far too early in the morning for there to be anyone around. The days of milkmen, postmen and paper boys heralding the start of a new day were long gone.
If he thought he was in for a rest when he got home, he was very much mistaken. When he got to the front door he had his front door key in his hand, fresh from being scraped down the side of the car in front of his house,
all ready to insert in the lock.
Without even looking at the door he instinctively reached for the lock, but when the key bounced off the door he was alarmed to notice that the lock had disappeared. In fact, not only was the lock missing, it also wasn’t even the same door. His old, wooden door, complete with peeling blue paint, seemed to have been replaced by a glass and steel construction.
He thought back to the other houses he’d seen earlier with different doors. This was becoming increasingly bizarre.
Had he got the wrong house? He stepped back and looked around the street. It looked like the right street, apart from yet more of those peculiar little differences that he was now beginning to notice more and more.
He looked at the number etched into the glass door: 14. It was definitely his house. A quick glance back to the cul-de-sac’s entrance across the road confirmed that it was “St Margaret’s Close”, the familiar sign in place where it had always been.
He wasn’t that drunk that he couldn’t recognise his own house. It had to be the right one. So who had been messing about with his front door? And all the other front doors in the neighbourhood, come to that.
He examined the door more closely. It didn’t seem to contain any sort of lock: in fact there didn’t even appear to be a handle. There was, however, a small, black, plastic panel set into the door at about head height, about 3 inches square. A single red light on the panel was blinking at him. He peered into it and was taken by surprise as it spoke.
“Unknown retina pattern – please identify yourself.”
“What the fuck?” exclaimed Dan. “What is this? Let me into my fucking house.”
“That information is incorrect,” said the soulless computer voice. “Please state the purpose of your visit here.”
“Fuck off,” said Dan. He walked round to the side of the house and opened the small gate that led alongside towards the kitchen door.
He was relieved to see that the kitchen door was exactly as he remembered it, right down to the reassuringly familiar-looking lock and handle. He located the correct key in the bunch that he was still clutching tightly in his hands, and inserted it into the lock. It was the right key. With a sigh of relief as he felt it turn, he opened the kitchen door.
