by Jason Ayres
The old Dan would have derived a real sense of satisfaction from overwhelming Josh in this way. Back at school, Josh had been the fitter and stronger of the two. He had made it quite clear on more than one occasion that he’d be quite happy to lay Dan out if he stepped out of line.
Dan, a bully but a coward at heart, had always backed down. But now he had Josh where he wanted him. Strangely, he took no pleasure from it.
Josh was struggling to turn around and fight back but Dan had such a commanding advantage that he had little chance of doing so. If Dan had wanted to, he could easily have knocked Josh into unconsciousness, or even worse, but he had no desire to hurt him any more than was absolutely necessary. He’d done enough damage in the past on that front and didn’t want any more blood on his hands. All he wanted was the tachyometer.
Should he allow Josh to see who had attacked him? Was that a good idea? He searched inside himself to try and understand his motivation. Did he want to show him that after all he’d been through, he’d emerged triumphant? He didn’t really feel like that. All he wanted was the opportunity to go home.
But if he did knock Josh unconscious he would never get the answers that he so desperately needed, and the one burning question that still consumed him over all of this was “Why?”
So he sat astride Josh to keep him from getting up, but allowed him to turn so he could see who’d attacked him.
“You!” shouted Josh, in a surprisingly strong voice considering his current situation. “How did you find me?” He was looking incredulously at Dan, as if he couldn’t believe that his old schoolmate could have had the intelligence to track him down.
“I’m not as stupid as you think I am,” replied Dan. “Thanks to you and your friends leaving me banged up in a mental institution, I’ve had plenty of time to work things out. You deliberately pushed me forward in time. Now I want to know why.”
“You asked for it,” replied Josh defiantly. “We all knew you killed Lauren, yet you got off scot-free. We needed to plug a gap in the tunnel and you were a convenient solution.”
“Do you have any idea what I’ve been through since I’ve been here?” asked Dan. “It’s been a living hell. I got arrested for breaking into my own house, for fuck’s sake.”
“So, what are you going to do now, big man?” taunted Josh. “Crush me to death? Though I see you’re not as fat as you used to be. Struggling to pay for your kebabs now, are you? My heart bleeds!”
“You know, if I was still the person you think I am, I’d probably kill you for saying that,” replied Dan. “But the fact is I’m not, at least I’m not anymore. All I want is this.”
He reached over and opened the backpack, taking out the tachyometer.
“Please don’t take that,” pleaded Josh, the arrogance vanishing from his voice as he feared what might happen if Dan got his hands on it.
“Look, it’s quite simple,” replied Dan. “I want to go home. I’m pretty sure this device can show me how. Now you can either tell me how it works, or I will figure it out for myself. But either way, I’m going back to 2041. Now are you going to show me how it works or not?”
“Over my dead body,” replied Josh.
“Well thankfully, whatever you might think of me, it’s not going to come to that.”
He looked more closely at the grey-haired man beneath him. “How old are you now, by the way? No, hang on: I can answer that one for you. It’s 2064, so you must be 63 years old. You see, I can even add up.”
“Well, clever you,” replied Josh. “And I remember you being crap at maths at school.”
“Well, since you can do the math,” replied Dan, using the American expression oft heard in the movies, “consider this. Not only am I not as fat as I used to be, but I’m still only 40 years old. So I’m going to take this and run off now. Do you think you’re going to be able to catch up with me, old man?”
“I can still catch you, you sad bastard,” replied Josh.
Dan sighed and looked up. 200 yards away, a young couple were walking down the path towards them. It was time for him to make himself scarce.
“You don’t make this easy on yourself, do you? I said I wasn’t planning to hurt you, but I’m sorry, I need to get home.”
He took the tachyometer from the backpack, then as hard as he dared, punched Josh in the face one last time. He winced as he did so. Why did his life always have to revolve around violence?
He vowed to himself, there and then, that this would be the last time he would hurt so much as a fly. Then he ran.
The punch didn’t knock Josh out, but it was enough to stun him sufficiently to allow Dan to get away. By the time he managed to pull himself together and sit up, Dan was already halfway down the tunnel.
Still disorientated, he reached into the backpack to confirm what he already knew. Dan had taken the tachyometer.
“Are you alright, mate?” a voice said from behind him.
The young couple had walked up the path, and were understandably concerned at witnessing what looked like a mugging.
There was no point involving them, thought Josh. “Yes, I’m fine. Just a little disagreement, you understand. Family feud and all that, I’ll be OK in a minute.”
The young couple accepted this and walked on.
But Josh realised that he wouldn’t be alright. He’d lost the tachyometer and, if Dan figured out how to use it, all hell could break loose. To make matters worse, he’d given his only working spare to Peter who was now hundreds, if not thousands, of years in the future. There was no way to get that back now.
He had well and truly screwed things up.
Chapter Twenty-Two
June 2064
Dan sprinted up the tunnel as fast as he possibly could. It was vital he put distance between himself and Josh.
It was late in the evening by now and the sun was low in the sky. Rays of sunlight were interspersed with the long shadows from the trunks of the horse chestnut trees as he ran past them and into the estate. Once he was there, he took several random turns, turning left and right through alleys into different streets until he was certain he’d shaken off any pursuit.
Only then, having run about a quarter of a mile and gasping for breath, did he allow himself the luxury of a look behind him. There was no sign of Josh.
Confident that he was safe for the moment, he slowed to a walking pace and continued on. He needed to find a safe place to examine Josh’s device and figure out how to use it, preferably before darkness fell.
He thought about going back home to Oxford, but it was too risky. For all he knew, Josh could have reported him to the police and they wouldn’t need much excuse to come knocking at his door, especially if D.I. Jones got wind of it.
At the edge of the estate was a small wooded area where kids often played and people walked their dogs. It didn’t seem too busy now, however. He could only see one dog walker and a couple of teenagers messing about on their bikes.
He checked his watch to see it was 9.15pm. He had about half an hour of useable daylight left. He walked into the wood and through to the centre where there were a few picnic tables. There was nobody there, despite the warm evening. Clearly there had been, as he could see that the various recycling bins were full, but they had all gone home now. It was perfect for his needs.
He sat down at the table and examined the device. It was a metallic tube, about 9 inches in length. It had four coloured buttons, and a small LCD screen with a tiny number keypad set into the side. It reminded him a little bit of the wireless microphones that they used to use for karaoke at his old local, the Red Lion, years ago, just slightly bigger.
He tentatively pressed the green button at the top, the closest one to the LCD screen. The screen at once lit up and the message “ENTER DATE” appeared.
This was a promising start. Dan had feared that the device would be beyond him, but even he could work out how to enter a date. He had feared that it might be protected by some sort of password protection but clearly th
at wasn’t the case. Josh had been very careless on that front.
Despite the ease of gaining access, he couldn’t discount the fact that Josh may have some way of tracking the whereabouts of the device. He might even have the ability to track it remotely. They were both real possibilities that meant he couldn’t risk hanging about. He needed to get on and do what he needed to do.
The date he’d departed from the past was etched upon his brain. He began to punch the numbers into the screen. As soon as he entered the first digit the screen changed for him to fill in the remaining digits. Josh couldn’t have made it any more straightforward.
He typed in the numbers 30/03/2041.
As soon as he’d entered the date the message “ENTER TIME” appeared on the screen.
Dan thought back to the day when he had left. It had been early in the morning. His first thought was that he should go back to before that time and make sure he was there in the tunnel to prevent his earlier self from being pushed through.
When he thought about it, he came to the conclusion that the plan did not make sense. If he did manage to succeed, what would happen to the person he was now? All of the past nine months would never have happened. If he succeeded, he would never have been pushed through, which would mean his current persona would cease to exist, along with all the knowledge he had gained.
There was also nothing then to stop Josh and the others from planning some other fate for him. So in the end, he decided to just set the timer for lunchtime on that day. They would then think that they had succeeded in their plan and would therefore not be looking for him. All he had to do then was go home to his old house and lay low for a while.
He set the timer for 13.00. As soon as he’d entered the time, another message appeared: “OPEN BUBBLE”. The yellow button on the device was now flashing.
He held the device out in front of him as he had seen Josh do, and pressed the yellow button. “ENTER BUBBLE” appeared.
Josh couldn’t have made this any easier for him if he’d provided him with an instruction manual. He paused momentarily, wondering if this was too good to be true and it was all some convoluted trap, but there was only one way to find out. He held his breath and stepped forward.
Instantly, he knew that he’d been successful. The daylight had been fading from the sky when he stepped into the bubble, now suddenly the sun was overhead.
He also noticed the trees around him were not in the full leaf of summer that they had been a few moments ago, but covered in blossom instead.
In the past, Dan would never have noticed something like that. But things had changed over the past nine months. He’d learned to slow down, to look around and appreciate the world around him. And what he was seeing now was all very promising.
He walked out of the woods and back into the housing estate. The more he looked around him, the more his confidence grew that he was indeed home. The cars looked right for the time, as did the houses. Even the rusty old camper van was reassuringly back where it should be. He’d never been so glad to see it. As he reached the main road he was also pleased to see that the old estate pub had also been restored to its former glory. A large, scrolling banner outside read “Live Premiership Football here: Arsenal vs Chelsea, 12.45pm, Sat 30th March”. He could hear cheering coming from inside the pub as the drinkers enjoyed the holographic game.
Just to make doubly sure, he headed into the newsagent’s and picked up a copy of The Sun. It felt wonderful to pick up a copy of a real printed newspaper again. He looked at the date on the top: “Saturday 30th March 2041”. That was all the confirmation he needed. He was definitely home.
He walked up to the counter and handed the paper to the middle-aged man behind the till who scanned it.
As he reached into his pocket, the man said, “One twenty please.” Without thinking, he handed over a 2-euro coin.
“What’s this?” the cashier asked. “Have you just got back from holiday or something?”
“Sorry,” said Dan, realising his mistake. “Can you take euros?”
“Do we look like the sort of shop that takes euros,” replied the clearly irritated man. “Come back later when you’ve got some proper money.”
“Sorry, mate,” replied Dan. It didn’t matter. If all was as it should be, his wallet would be waiting for him at home on the coffee table.
It was a short stroll from the shop back to St Margaret’s Close where he was delighted to see that his front door was back as it should have been.
He wasn’t so delighted to see a car parked over the end of his drive, one he recognised as belonging to one of his neighbours. Never mind, thought Dan, live and let live. He was so pleased to be home, a little thing like that wasn’t going to bother him.
There was a slight setback when he reached the front door and remembered he no longer had his keys. They were in his flat in Oxford, 23 years in the future. Then he remembered he’d set aside contingency plans for just such an emergency after an incident a few years ago when he’d drunkenly locked himself out.
He opened the gate at the side of the house and walked down past the kitchen door to where he kept the wheelie bins. Next to the bins was a large ceramic pot, which was full of weeds. He crouched down, lifted it slightly off the ground and pulled out the spare key from underneath.
He walked back to the kitchen door and let himself in. As soon as he was through the door he turned and locked it behind him, breathing a sigh of relief. He was safe at last.
He looked around the kitchen. It was home, but it didn’t feel like home. In contrast to his clean and tidy flat where he had become quite house-proud, the place was an absolute mess.
The walls were faded and dirty, and a couple of tiles had fallen off the wall. Above a deep fat fryer there was an unsightly yellow stain spreading up the wall. The kitchen surfaces were littered with takeaway boxes and dirty crockery. Had he really left the place in this state?
He walked through to the lounge. There were a couple of pizza boxes on the floor and empty lager cans all over the coffee table. At least his wallet was there. He picked it up and looked inside, reassured to see some good old-fashioned twenty-pound notes inside.
The place was a tip and he was a slob. He sat down for a moment to think things over. His relief at being home was tempered by the signs everywhere of the person that he used to be. Had he really wanted to come back here after all this time? He couldn’t deny that things had worked out a lot better for him in the future.
Admittedly, it hadn’t started out too well, what with being arrested and incarcerated in the psychiatric unit, but as time had gone on, he’d grown to enjoy his life in 2064. The people he had got to know there actually seemed to like him. It wasn’t just Amelia, but the other people in the flats, and the warden as well. For the first time in his life, he had felt as if he belonged somewhere.
What did he have here? A bunch of former school friends who despised him and a town that knew all about his reputation and what he’d done during the Black Winter. People in this time zone crossed the street to avoid him. And what would those former friends do when they discovered that he was still here, and not two decades in the future. Would they come after him and do something even worse to him? Suddenly he began to feel not so safe after all.
The more he thought about everything, the more he began to wonder why he had bothered to come back. It had been a quest, yes, maybe even an obsession, to right a wrong and get back to his former life.
But now he was here, he just didn’t want it anymore.
He looked down at the coffee table where he’d put down the tachyometer. At least he still had that. Could he make life more pleasant for himself using it? In theory, he could have anything he wanted.
When he’d left home in 2064 this morning, he hadn’t known he’d be coming home, but what if he’d come back armed with details of the winners of every major horse race of the next twenty years? He could be wealthy beyond his wildest dreams. He’d love to see the look on Nobby the Prof
essor’s face in The Red Lion. After years of listening to his duff tips and bullshit about being a professional punter, wouldn’t it be amazing to waltz in waving a huge wad and ordering drinks all round?
He could easily do this if he nipped back forwards in time to get the information. But even this idea didn’t really appeal. What was the point of having money here if everyone hated him? Sure, they would take his drinks off him, but they would still despise him. Would he really get pleasure from living that sort of life? The old Dan would have done, but he wasn’t the old Dan anymore.
As he looked at the tachyometer, he realised that there was only one thing he could do, one great wrong that he had to put right. Until that was done, there was no amount of money or anything else that could ease his troubled soul. He had to go back.
Picking up the tachyometer, he pressed the green button and began to enter a date:
31/10/2029
Chapter Twenty-Three
October 2029
Dan had set the tachyometer for midday when he’d jumped back in time, and had arrived back in the living room of his home once again. Once again, the house did not belong to him. The décor was unfamiliar just as it had been when he’d arrived there in the future.
This time he’d arrived at a time before he’d lived there. He was instantly struck by the cold. He may have been indoors, but the heating was clearly off. Of the occupants there was no sign: they had probably fled the area as many had during the Black Winter.
Hunting through the wardrobes, he kitted himself out and made plans for his trip to the Army base. Wrapped up in a thick coat, with a hood and a scarf disguising many of his features, he was fairly confident that he’d be able to get in.
It was important that he would be recognisable enough for the guards on the gate to let him in, but covered up sufficiently for them to not notice the age difference. He was around 13 years older, physically, than his younger self who would already be in the base, but they’d only really see his face, and that hadn’t changed too much.
