by Jason Ayres
He slept better than he had for a long time, his body still recovering from the effects of his recent day’s work on the railway tracks. It had been a long time since he had done any physical labour – at least thirty years in fact, when he had worked for his dad during the holidays when he was doing his degree.
Consequently, when he awoke, ten hours later, his whole body felt extremely stiff. His sore limbs didn’t bother him too much, though, because his mind was in a good place. Things might not have gone according to plan so far on this adventure, but he was feeling pretty optimistic that things were going to work out this time.
To reassure himself further, he stopped by the Covered Market to pick up his paper, dated Wednesday 4th September. Checking the front page, he was pleased to see that there were no fake, dead rockstars this time. The headline was consistent with a story he remembered very well as it had dominated the news for several weeks in the summer of 2024:
TRUMP GIVES KIM JONG-UN FINAL WARNING
There had been an escalation in hostilities between America and North Korea at the time over the latter’s continued development of nuclear weapons. The Russians and Chinese had also become involved and things had got very tense before a peaceful resolution was reached.
Unlike the previous evening, it was wet and drizzly outside, so Josh decided to stay undercover and read about what was happening in the world in his favourite café. Sticking to his new fuelling-up-when-he-could policy, he ordered the largest breakfast and took his time looking through the paper.
The sports pages were full of vitriol directed at England’s football team after an abject performance in their first qualifying game for the 2026 World Cup. Alan Shearer, writing in the paper, had described the 1-0 away defeat to Lithuania as a “new low”.
If only he knew, thought Josh, remembering England’s remarkable recovery and unlikely triumph, culminating in a second World Cup triumph, sixty years after the first. Such had been the euphoria that David Baddiel had even dusted down his vocal cords to record a new version of “Three Lions” to celebrate the win. A new golden age of English football was confidently forecast, but it proved to be a false dawn. In 2055, after another thirty years of hurt, England was still waiting for another trophy.
Turning his mind away from football, he speculated that with everything here being so similar to home, there might be a chance he had found his way back to his original universe. If that was the case, it ought to be plain sailing from here on in. Leaving the café, his spirits couldn’t be dampened by the rain as he headed towards the college, full of hope of finally finding his younger self.
Although it was early September, a few weeks before the start of term, there was still a strong chance that the young Josh would be there, and possibly the Professor, too. Although lectures only took place on around thirty weeks of the year, researchers, fellows and other academics spent a great deal more time there than that. In fact, Josh had known quite a few over the years who seemed to practically live in their rooms.
Josh had also preferred the holidays to term time while he was carrying out his time travel research. He had been able to get a lot more work done without the irksome distraction of giving lectures.
It was peak tourist season in Oxford and the college was packed with visitors, far more than on his last visit. He more or less waltzed straight in and through to the laboratory unchallenged. Security had never been the college’s strong point. When he opened the lab door, he was delighted to see his younger self tinkering about with some of the Professor’s equipment.
“Still messing about with that tachyonics stuff, then?” he stated. “Yeah, I wasted about three years on that, too.”
His younger self looked up, surprised at this sudden intrusion.
“Who are…” began the younger Josh, but that was as far as he got before recognition quickly dawned. “You’re me!”
“Clever lad,” said Josh, “I knew you wouldn’t let me down. Yes, it’s me, come to visit from the future, and you know what that means, don’t you?”
“That time travel really is possible!” said the young Josh, instantly seizing on the implications. “I can’t believe I look so old, though! How long did it take? Decades by the look of you.”
“Hey, less of the old,” replied Josh, who was still feeling the aches and pains from his day on the rail tracks. He felt a pang of jealousy, seeing this young pup in front of him. What would he give to be his age again?
He hadn’t figured out a way of making himself younger, yet, though he had thought about it. Could it be possible? Could he transfer his consciousness into a younger version? That would be an interesting way of cheating death. He’d have to investigate it when he got back, which was looking a lot more likely now.
“So what brings you here?” asked young Josh. “This is just awesome! There’s so much I want to ask you!”
“Believe it or not, I’ve come because I need your help,” replied Josh. “And in return, I’m going to help you. You don’t want to spend the next three decades trying to figure out all this lot, do you? With my help, you’ll be able to get there a lot quicker.”
Over the next hour or so, Josh once again related the tale of everything that had happened up to this point. Young Josh eagerly lapped it all up, hanging on his every word, seemingly indistinguishable from himself at that age. Surely he was as good as home.
“So what I’m really counting on is you inventing this, and then coming back here with a working replacement so I can get home,” concluded Josh, handing his younger self the tachyometer to examine.
“And you say it took you nearly thirty years to create this?” asked the young Josh.
“Well, a bit less than that,” replied Josh. “I travelled here from 2055, but I’ve been using various earlier versions and prototypes for several years already. But, yes, it did take a long time, with a lot of trial and error involved. Now I’m here, you can cut out all the blind alleys and do it in a fraction of the time.”
As he finished the sentence, he became aware that there was a lot of noise coming from the window. He could hear people shouting and then a woman screaming.
“What’s going on out there?” he asked.
“I’ve no idea,” said the younger Josh. “It’s not normally this lively, even in Freshers’ Week.”
They both made for the window, peering through the venetian blinds to the quadrangle outside.
Outside, there were people running in all directions, screaming and panicking.
“Oh my God, get away from the window,” said the younger Josh. “This must be some sort of terrorist attack.”
“In Oxford?” queried Josh. “I don’t remember that.” There had been constant terrorist attacks in the early decades of the century but they had mainly been in the bigger cities. Something unusual was clearly going on here, though.
Whatever it was, he really hoped it wasn’t going to mess everything up. It had taken long enough to find a Josh that could help him and he didn’t want anything to jeopardise that now.
“Let’s see if we can figure out what’s going on,” said Josh, turning towards the touch screen on the wall. “TV on,” he said. “Turn to BBC News 24.”
What appeared on the TV was far more horrifying than any local terrorist attack. The top half of the screen was dominated by a distant view of what was clearly a nuclear explosion, a huge, bright, orange base billowing up into the classic mushroom cloud shape against the night sky. It was like something out of a big-budget film.
Seeing it on the BBC’s news channel, with the familiar rolling captions underneath, left no doubt that this was no movie. This was real and it was happening now. A large banner along the bottom of the screen read:
BREAKING: NUCLEAR MISSILE STRIKES GUAM
Beneath that was a scrolling bar, on which Josh could read more details:
MILLIONS FEARED DEAD…TRUMP VOWS RETALIATION…UK TRIDENT RESPONSE ON STANDBY…
While all of this was sinking in, Josh could hear t
he familiar voice of the channel’s news anchor, Seema Mistry, describing events, as the image of the bomb was replayed over and over again on a loop.
“It’s understood that the missile struck at approximately quarter past midnight, local time, which is quarter past eleven in the morning here in the UK. We are also getting unconfirmed reports of intercontinental missiles being launched by the USA in retaliation, which would seem to be consistent with what we heard from President Trump just a few moments ago.”
Josh had known Seema since she was a local reporter in Oxford, and had never known her be anything but the consummate professional, reporting calmly on all manner of shocking incidents over the years. But today was different. He could feel the fear in her voice. She was doing her best to mask it, but if even the unflappable Seema was scared, this had to be bad.
“There has been no statement yet from the Russian Federation, but you may recall that yesterday President Putin clearly stated that use of nuclear weapons by the USA would not be tolerated under any circumstances.”
“Oh my God,” said young Josh. “It’s the end of the world.”
Josh could feel his hopes of getting home slipping away from him once more. If this world really was about to destroy itself in a nuclear Armageddon, then that would end any hope he had of this Josh staying alive long enough to help him.
What had happened here to create such a catastrophic scenario? He knew tinkering around in time had led to deaths before, but nothing on this scale. Was he somehow responsible for the demise of the billions that were about to perish here? One nuclear bomb in Guam was bad enough, but if the Americans and Russians started taking pot-shots at each other, the entire planet was very quickly going to turn into a giant bonfire.
Seema’s broadcast continued, each update more devastating than the last:
“And news just coming in, we are getting reports from Reuters that at least six nuclear missiles have struck the North Korean mainland.”
“What the hell is Trump thinking?” said young Josh, aghast. “That’s right on the Russian border, not to mention Japan, South Korea and China. He’s going to poison the entire area.”
They watched in horrified fascination, unable to tear their eyes away, as new footage showed more explosions taking place. Then reports of Russian missile launches began to come in.
Despite the obvious fear in her voice, Josh had to admire Seema’s professionalism in remaining at her post, particularly as she was reporting from London which would almost certainly be the first target for any missiles heading for the UK.
Young Josh standing beside him made no attempt at hiding his fear. He was clearly petrified at the growing realisation that his world was going up in flames. His terror was merely exacerbated by the noise coming from outside, where screaming people and wailing police sirens were all adding to the impending sense of doom.
Josh couldn’t remain here any longer. There was nothing he could do to help these people, but he at least had a way out. It was devastating, seeing a whole world self-destructing in this way, but he had to remember that it wasn’t his world. He had to get away and he had to get away fast. Picking up the tachyometer which had been left on the desk when they started watching the TV, he held it out and prepared for the jump. The green light was on and he was good to go.
This didn’t go unnoticed by young Josh, who screamed at him in panic.
“What the hell are you doing? You’re going to use that thing to escape, aren’t you? Please, you can’t just run off and leave me like this. Take me with you.”
His younger self looked at him, a pleading look of desperation in his eyes. It was the look of a condemned man clutching at one last straw of potential salvation.
“Josh, I’d love to, I’d do anything to save you, but only one person can travel in a bubble at a time. This isn’t my world. I’m really sorry, but whatever the people have done here to cause this, they’ve brought it upon themselves.”
“Brought it upon themselves?” screamed Josh. “You said yourself that you believe it’s your own time-travelling that’s created all these other worlds? How do you know it’s not something you’ve done in the past of this world to cause this?”
Josh was well aware of the possibility, and had been trying to suppress such thoughts.
“There’s no way of knowing that,” he replied.
“It must have been you,” yelled young Josh, becoming hysterical with fear. “You’re going to be responsible for the destruction of my entire world. The very least you can do is sacrifice yourself and spare me.”
With that, he lunged forward at Josh, attempting to wrest the tachyometer from him. Josh stepped aside, but not quite quickly enough, causing the two of them to collide and crash into the table, sending the Professor’s glass jars and other equipment flying and smashing in all directions.
Josh still had hold of the tachyometer and, as he attempted to get up, pointed it in front of him to activate the bubble. He pressed the button but before he could get through. he felt the younger Josh’s arms wrest him backwards, pulling him off balance once again, dropping the tachyometer in the process. The two wrestled, both trying to get their hands on the magic wand, then suddenly it was all over as the younger Josh vanished.
In despair, Josh realised immediately what had happened. His younger self had fallen into the bubble which, of course, was now gone. He had got his wish after all and escaped, travelling back months in time to another universe.
To his relief, Josh saw that he had not lost the tachyometer. It was still on the floor where it had fallen, but having used up all its power for now, the light was back on red.
He turned back to the TV to see more mushroom clouds billowing upwards on the screen. The scrolling bar gave confirmation that both Moscow and New York had been obliterated as the Russians and the Americans threw everything they had at each other.
The apocalypse scenario that had always been feared in his own universe was now being played out right in front of him. He couldn’t see any way the human race was going to be able to survive this. Even if areas were not directly hit, the radiation released would surely traverse the entire globe and wipe out most life on Earth in a very short time.
What was it he had read once? Only cockroaches would survive a nuclear holocaust? He had no desire to be around long enough to be eaten by them.
He had no way out now until the tachyometer recharged. Until then he had to focus all his efforts on survival. He checked the time on the TV to find it had just passed midday. If he was going to stay alive for another twelve hours, he needed to come up with a plan, fast.
Lifting one of the slats on the venetian blinds, he looked out of the window again. From here he could see right out through the college gates into the street beyond. Outside the confines of the college he could see a lot of people running around and more screaming than before. These panicky people would doubtless be the first to die. Perhaps that would be a merciful thing as he didn’t rate their long-term chances, even if Oxford wasn’t directly hit.
But London would surely be targeted, and it was only fifty miles away. How much damage would a missile striking London do here? It would all depend on the size, he supposed, but he wasn’t hanging around looking out of the window to find out. If the blast did reach, it might still be possible to survive in some sort of shelter for the short time he needed.
Doubtless there would be others out there seeking shelter but their long-term prospects weren’t good. Even if they did survive the blast, a long, lingering death from radiation poisoning or starvation would be the inevitable outcome.
All he needed was somewhere underground with sufficient shelter to survive the blast and where hopefully any radiation wouldn’t seep in before it was time to jump. So, what were his options?
What underground places were there in Oxford? He knew that many of the shops, bars and restaurants in the city centre had basements. He had eaten in one only the previous evening, but what would the situation be in those pla
ces? He couldn’t imagine being crammed in with hundreds of other screaming, panicking people would be a particularly enjoyable experience. And how could he create a bubble to jump through in such circumstances where someone else could fall into it, just as the younger Josh had?
Then suddenly he remembered what Future Josh had said to him at the meal at Mario’s.
“Don’t forget about the cellar.”
Of course – this must have been the situation he had been referring to. He had the perfect place to hide out right here in the college. With the place running on a skeleton staff there would be few people onsite who knew about it, and the visitors to the college, if they hadn’t all run away by now, certainly wouldn’t.
Getting to the cellar wouldn’t take him more than a couple of minutes. Once he was down there he would be in the dark about what was going on up here, so he decided that he could risk waiting a while longer to keep an eye on the news coverage. If it seemed likely that a bomb was going to hit London, he was sure he could be safely tucked away before the blast reached Oxford.
If no bombs did reach the UK, then getting through the next twelve hours should not be a problem. Even if America and other places had been wiped out, it would take longer than that for the poisonous radiation to be scattered around the globe by the prevailing weather patterns and the jet stream.
What about radiation if London was hit? How long would that take to reach Oxford? Would it even come this way? That would depend on the weather, he figured. It had been raining on and off all morning and that might be his salvation.
Trying to recall his meteorology, he was fairly sure that wet weather came from the south-west, across the Atlantic. That was good news in the short term, as potentially it would carry any radiation away from him.
If only Kaylee were here. She would be able to tell him in an instant what to expect, but she wasn’t, and he was hardly about to ring her up for a weather forecast under the current circumstances.
