The Time Bubble Box Set

by Jason Ayres

  Heading back out into the store, he went straight to the chilled aisle, looking for some highly calorific snacks. He had always hated going supermarket shopping with Alice. She had always frowned on his unhealthy eating habits, tut-tutting if he even so much as looked at the sausages on the hot deli counter. She seemed to be on a mission every time they went to steer him away from all his favourite foods towards the fruit and veg section.

  There were no such restrictions tonight. Forget healthy eating, this was all about survival. Edmund Hillary hadn’t climbed Everest on lettuce and cucumber. Pausing only to pick up a basket, he was practically salivating as he spotted the sign above aisle 4 that read “Cold Meats, Pies and Savouries”.

  It was cold in this aisle, almost as cold as outside, but he was warmed by the sight of the delicious treats in front of him.

  The first thing to go in the basket was a six-pack of Melton Mowbray mini-pork pies. Packs of mini-Scotch eggs and chipolata sausages quickly followed. Josh had always enjoyed this sort of food. It reminded him of the parties he used to go to when he was a kid. Finger buffet food such as this was the perfect choice, given his current circumstances. Anything requiring a knife and fork would be seriously impractical during his upcoming sub-zero picnic outside in the snow.

  A quick whizz around a few more aisles added a six-pack of crisps, some chocolate and a few fizzy drinks. They weren’t chilled but he could always stick them in a snowdrift for five minutes. He couldn’t bear warm pop.

  He was sorely tempted to grab himself a bottle of Malbec as well, but decided against it. He needed to keep a clear head in the current situation. Besides, he had enough to carry as it was. Hopefully he could find some room to squeeze some into his backpack. What he didn’t eat right away he would take with him to see him through the next few hours.

  Not wanting to get drawn into any unnecessary conversation, he ignored the one checkout that was open and went straight for the self-service tills. Once he was through, paying with his antiquated cash, he headed for the front door. Just before he reached it, he passed customer service, at last noticing a clock behind the counter that informed him it was now quarter to three. He had been holed up in the toilets for nearly an hour.

  He also noticed the newspaper stand nearby, reminding him to check out the date.

  There were very few newspapers on the rack, which he assumed meant this morning’s hadn’t arrived yet. These would almost certainly be left over from the previous day and the dates on all of them read 27th December 2024. So if it was early morning on the 28th now, then he must have travelled back in time by around four days on his latest jump.

  He quickly scanned the headlines, looking for anything that seemed out of the ordinary. He still had no idea if he was travelling within his own universe, an exact copy, or another universe altogether.

  As far as he could see, everything was as it should be. He couldn’t recall the minutiae of all the news stories of this time period, but there was nothing on the front pages that leapt out at him as not being right.

  The more highbrow papers were leading with some story about yet another Scottish Independence Referendum, so nothing unusual there. The red-top tabloids were screaming about an indiscretion by some long-forgotten soap star, whilst the Daily Express led with “Coldest Winter in 100 Years to Cripple Britain”.

  “Yeah, you’re about five years too early for that one,” murmured Josh. Weather scare stories were a staple of that paper: he had lost count of the number of heatwave summers and new ice ages they had predicted.

  A quick look at the sports pages showed nothing unusual either. The football league tables were exactly as they should have been. If he was in a different universe, it was remarkably similar to the one he had grown up in.

  Apart from his brief spell in the cold meat aisle, he had warmed up considerably during the hour or so he had spent in the shop, but as soon as he got outside the freezing air sliced through him again. The snow was continuing unabated.

  He made for a small bus shelter a few yards along from the entrance to the store. At least this would offer a modicum of shelter against the elements. Inside, he sat down on the freezing cold iron bar that laughably passed for seat, wondering if he might end up sticking to it. There was glass all around and above him, but the front of the shelter was open, causing gusts of wind to whip in, blowing powdery snowflakes all around him.

  Opening his bag, he took out the pack of pork pies and ripped open the wrapper, stuffing the first one into his mouth almost whole, just as Barry had done with his biscuit at the hospital. Savouring how good it felt as the meat, jelly and pastry swirled around his mouth, he quickly reached for another. Ravenous as he was, he had devoured three of them before turning his attention to the Scotch eggs.

  As he ate, he pondered what to do next. He couldn’t stay in the bus shelter all night: he would freeze. There was no way he could walk anywhere else in the current weather conditions, and the tachyometer was out of action until further notice.

  Casting his eye up at the electronic scrolling board inside the shelter, he saw that the next bus would not be until 7am. That was assuming it was even running. He could see the snow settling on the roads outside and knew from experience what chaos that would cause.

  Hopefully it wouldn’t get that bad. He had been in the future, four days from now and there hadn’t been a trace of snow on the ground then, so this couldn’t have been that severe. Snowfalls during this period, before the asteroid strike, rarely were.

  As long as the buses were running, he would be just fine. He could get back into the centre of Oxford and that would open up more options. All he had to do was find some way to get through the next four hours until the bus came.

  He looked out of the side of the bus shelter at the bright, inviting lights of the store. He really had only one viable option at the moment – he had to go back inside.

  “More shopping it is, then!” he proclaimed, and headed back into the store. It was a huge Tesco, one of their flagship stores selling practically everything, but even he was going to struggle to fill four hours in it – wasn’t he?

  As things turned out, it wasn’t half as bad as he had expected. He started off by grabbing a trolley and popping a few random items in it, figuring this would make him look like a genuine shopper, rather than some vagrant seeking shelter for the night. Then he headed for the non-foods area at the far end of the store.

  There was a certain retro quality in wandering around a supermarket from thirty years ago. Heading for the games section, he marvelled at the range of PS5 games, reminiscing about some of the old classics he had played in his younger years. There were no brain control implants then. Most of it had been done using a handheld controller.

  In the electronics section, he laughed at the clunky holographic TVs that had become popular around this time. One of them was switched on, showing a demo of a man and a woman from some ancient talent show dancing in front of it. He marvelled at how lame the fizzy and ill-defined shapes in front of him looked. Fortunately, the technology had improved a lot since then.

  Further on he found some old vacuum cleaners of the type people used to push around. What a hassle that must have been in the days before robots. It was a similar story along most of the aisle, which was like visiting a museum. He noticed that the toasters had dials with numbers on the front, something that had long since disappeared since voice activation had become ubiquitous.

  Elsewhere in the store, some things had changed remarkably little. Toilet paper was still toilet paper, even in his time. A robot hadn’t yet been developed that wiped your arse for you, at least to his knowledge, but doubtless someone, somewhere, was working on it.

  The hours didn’t drag anywhere near as much as he had feared. Finishing his third lap of the store, he noted on the clock behind the desk at customer services that it was approaching 7am. No one had bothered him at all during his lonely vigil around the store. His tactic of popping an item into his trolley every few min
utes seemed to have done the trick. The trolley was now full and needed to be got rid of.

  Abandoning it down the deserted booze aisle, he headed back to the front of the store, noticing that the morning papers had arrived. A few early birds were already in store, picking up papers and snacks, so he decided to join them, grabbing a copy of the i paper, paying for it at the automatic checkouts and heading outside.

  Although it was still dark, the snow had stopped and he could see traffic moving freely on the ring road. It seemed the gritting machines must have done their job properly for once. He was also pleased to see a bus with ‘City Centre’ marked on the front turning into the car park. At last he would be on his way.

  As the bus trundled down Headington Hill, he again contemplated his situation. What should he do next? Wait for the tachyometer to charge and then jump again? The last leap had sent him four days back in time, so what about the next one?

  Was there any way he could get a message to the future to tell Alice where he was? Could he find her in this time period? Or could he find his own younger self, and get him to come back on a rescue mission, just as he had done before in the helicopter?

  Where would they be at this time? In 2024, Josh had begun lecturing at the university, in conjunction with studying for a postgraduate degree. It was around this time he had started his initial studies into time travel, assisting the long-retired Professor Hamilton with his tachyonics experiments. Those experiments had gone nowhere, but had laid the groundwork for the more successful ideas that came later.

  As for Alice, she would have been an undergraduate student at that time, but the current timing was unfortunate. The two of them had only met and started dating in early 2025. He was a little too early to hope for any help from her. A year or two later would have been fine. She would have known all about his interest in time travel by then, but at this stage she would be completely unaware. That would make seeking help from her decidedly difficult.

  Anything he might say to her now could affect his potential future relationship with her. He could hardly go up to her and say, “Hi, I’m Josh from thirty years in the future. You’re going to meet a younger version of me in a few weeks’ time and start going out with him.”

  He couldn’t imagine anyone uninitiated in the ways of time travel taking that seriously. He may well end up screwing up the relationship before it even started, at least in this universe, the one in which he currently needed help.

  That ruled out going to Alice. That left his younger self or Professor Hamilton, but tracking either down in the week between Christmas and New Year could prove troublesome. The university would be closed for the holidays and young Josh would be at home with his family. He couldn’t just turn up at his house. For a start, he would have his father to contend with. He was bound to want to know who this oddly familiar-looking stranger was turning up at the front door.

  Josh’s bus had reached town by now, on a morning that was cold and clear. The snow had stopped and the sky was beginning to brighten as the sun neared the horizon.

  Getting off the bus, he made for the Covered Market, a welcome familiar place which, like Mario’s, seemed immune to the passage of time. Making his way through the historic alleys, past butchers setting up their fayre for the day, he walked down to one of the cafés at the back for a good, old-fashioned fry-up. Despite his late-night feast of pies and crisps, he was already hungry again.

  It was early and he was the first customer in the café. With uncertainty over where he was going and when he would eat again, he decided to breakfast like a king. He chose the largest offering on the menu, the one that came with two of everything. Before long, he was soon tucking into a plate generously laden with bacon, eggs and sausages, washing it down with copious amounts of coffee.

  Having gone through all the options, he had decided against contacting anyone for the time being. So where could he go next? Another hotel would seem his best option, but it was the wrong time of day for that. The earliest he would be able to book in would be lunchtime, so that left him with a few more hours to kill.

  By then the tachyometer might have started working again and he could risk another jump. It had taken him four days back in time before. Would it do the same again? If he could get back to mid-December, he might be able to find the Josh or Professor Hamilton at the university.

  His only other option was to wait around a couple of weeks for everyone to get back from the festivities, and he really didn’t have the patience for that, not to mention the money. Using the tachyometer to steal money from the cashpoint was no longer an option – like most of its functions, he needed the screen lit up to do that.

  Washing down his last piece of sausage with a swig of coffee, he made up his mind. He would wait for the device to charge up again and attempt another jump. Recalling his embarrassing arrival in the midst of the couple having sex, he also vowed to ensure that this time he was somewhere safe.

  That time came by mid-afternoon. After a morning spent wandering aimlessly around shops in Oxford, he was relieved when the sole working light on the device once again glowed a reassuring green.

  He headed for Christ Church Meadow, for his favourite spot behind an ancient tree which he had used many times before for his jumps. This area was a popular place in the summer, but there was no one around today. This was hardly surprising, given the weather. The early sunny start had been replaced by a relentless drizzle out of leaden skies that was turning last night’s snow to slush already. It was hardly conducive to walks in the park. Even the ducks on the River Cherwell behind the tree looked depressed, and they were supposed to like that sort of thing.

  There was no point hanging around here any longer. Activating the device, he stepped forward, wondering where his next jump would take him.

  Chapter Eleven

  December 2024

  As was often the case, the most noticeable sign he had jumped was the weather. Drizzly wet skies were instantly replaced by a dazzling blue, making him wish he had packed a pair of dark glasses. The sun, gorgeous and orange, was close to the western horizon. It looked very warm but lacked the power to heat the air. It was noticeably colder than the time he had just left.

  His hunch was that he had again jumped a few days back in time. Heading out of the park, he made straight for the newsagent’s booth in the Covered Market. The Christmas decorations were still up all around the market, so he knew he hadn’t travelled far in time. At the booth, he picked up a paper and checked the date.

  It was Friday 20th December in the same year, which meant he had travelled back a total of eight days this time. A pattern was starting to emerge. The first time he had jumped back two days. Next it had been four, and now it was eight.

  He was reminded of the original time bubble which had sent people into the future. That had doubled each time someone had entered. Now the tachyometer seemed to be producing a reverse effect, doubling his distance back in time each jump.

  If this was the case, he would know for certain next time he jumped because he would be sixteen days further back in the past. That wouldn’t be for a while. The power indicator on the wand was on red again and would presumably stay that way for the rest of this day at least.

  He was once again going to be in search of a bed for the night, but he didn’t fancy the travel tavern again. The place was soulless and depressing and that wasn’t what he needed right now. He needed to find somewhere better.

  His eyes were drawn away from the date by the newspaper headline which screamed out:

  ROCKSTAR ANDY GREEN DEAD AT 47

  He didn’t remember a rockstar called Andy Green and Josh knew his music well. Still, the name was vaguely familiar. Where did he know it from? He scrutinised the accompanying picture of the dead singer. It wasn’t just the name that was familiar. He had seen that face before, long ago.

  Perhaps it would come to him later. He walked over to the kiosk to pay for the paper, intending to read more as soon as he was settled into his hote
l. If he was going to be stuck here for a while it would be a good idea to familiarise himself with what was going on in the world.

  The paper was a good start, but what he really needed was internet access. This would require a little effort on his part. In his era, practically every device could talk and was in a state of ‘always on’, but here he’d need to acquire a device that could use good, old-fashioned Wi-Fi.

  He walked up from the Covered Market towards Cornmarket Street where he found an old-fashioned mobile phone shop. He just needed something basic that would allow him to access the internet without eating too much into his funds.

  Getting a high-spec device on a contract would be impossible in this time when he had no official identity or even an address. Attempting to pass himself off as his younger, twenty-something self on his futuristic driving licence would be certain to fail.

  Getting a phone on an old-fashioned, pay-as-you-go 5G contract was also a non-starter. He would still have to give some personal details and they would have to activate it for him. Even if he did manage to get them to do this, he would probably not be able to use it once he jumped back in time again. Then he would be in a time prior to activation.

  In the end, he decided to buy a cheap tablet with no 5G access at all, figuring he could just use it on Wi-Fi in hotspots. As long as the hotel he booked himself into had free Wi-Fi, he could use that at his leisure.

  With his new tablet safely in his backpack, he turned his attention to the question of where to stay. Much as he would have loved to have booked into the Randolph or another upmarket hotel, he still had to manage his funds. He might need to stay here for a while. If the tachyometer really was doubling his jumps, he was going to need to ration them, otherwise he would be back in medieval times before he knew it. Before jumping again, he needed to rest, recuperate and take stock of his situation.

  Making his way down Abingdon Road, he found a family-run guest house that he could stay in for just £80 a night. It was quiet, affordable, and most importantly, it had Wi-Fi.