The Dark Restarter

by Sean McMahon

  Future Hal fielded the question, his hands interlocking in front of him.

  Hal clocked the silver ring his future-self was sporting as it caught the moonlight. It was hard to make out, but at barely a metre away he was able to tilt his head, trying to decipher the significance of the logo which looked like an upside-down tree next to a building.

  ‘It is imperative, for the sanctity of history, that when solidified time takes hold, certain…constants are kept intact.’ Future Hal stared directly at Malcolm as he delivered what was clearly a well-rehearsed sentence.

  Malcolm caught every ounce of subtext, knowing exactly what the time traveller was implying.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Ava, chiming in. ‘When ol’ Kev’ escapes from that room down there, he’s going to check Malcolm’s pulse. If he feels one, he’ll for cereal drive a screwdriver into his throat.’ Ava mimed the action, making the noise of someone who had just been stabbed.

  Future Hal winced, as if it were in bad taste. Which, of course, it was.

  Hal and Kara were both sensing Ava and her boss clashed often in terms of their work dynamic.

  Malcolm nodded knowingly. ‘So, you injected me with my own serum. One that creates the illusion of death. Very clever. Though I fear you were a little…over-zealous with the dosage.’

  ‘Should it worry me that I’m so used to hanging out with Malcolm now that I wasn’t even remotely creeped out by that?’ Kara offered up to the time travellers that were slowly but surely beginning to outnumber the regular visitors of the lakes.

  Hal shrugged, clearly feeling the same way.

  ‘Quite,’ said Future Hal. ‘One of the benefits of Tetrodotoxin – besides inducing paralysis – is that it inhibits the central nervous system from carrying messages through the body, preventing muscles from flexing in response to stimulation.’

  ‘Did you know that?’ said Hal, whispering to Malcolm.

  ‘Of course I knew tha–’

  Future Hal continued. ‘Whilst Malcolm’s unique concoction doesn’t completely cloak the pulse of an individual–’

  ‘It’ll slow it down just long enough,’ said Ross, not bothering to look up at them, ‘for Kevin to miss it when he checks for one. Forty-one seconds between each beat to be precise. If Ava got the dosage right.’

  Ava mimed Ross’s words, refusing to look at him, the dig at her capabilities flicking off her like water off a duck’s back.

  The once and future Hal’s lip trembled, fighting against the smile which was desperate to escape. He had every faith in Ava. Despite her incorrigible attitude, she was bloody good when it counted. ‘And as Kevin will only check for forty of those seconds, he will not, as Ava so eloquently put it, drive a screwdriver into Malcolm’s throat.’

  ‘It seems you’ve thought of everything,’ said Malcolm, nodding thoughtfully, with a look of intensity directed squarely at Future Hal. A penetrating glare of understanding which the time traveller interpreted exactly as Malcolm intended him to, the two older men now privy to an unspoken truth; that Malcolm knew it wasn’t time, or restarts, or even a delayed resuscitation that had caused his coma. It had been this new version of Hal that had seen to that.

  Future Hal returned a barely perceptible nod, the exchange allowing both men to know it wasn’t personal. Merely insurance to ensure a temporal constant was kept on course.

  After all, everything had to happen once, for it to happen again.

  Whilst there was a chance Ava had known what she was doing when she carried out Future Hal’s orders, Malcolm sincerely doubted it, given the breezy demeanour she was emanating. Which meant in the years that were to follow, Hal was clearly now taking a page out of Malcolm’s approach to manipulating those around him…

  ‘Wow, you guys really run a tight ship,’ said Kara. ‘How do you even know all of this stuff?’

  ‘We’ve had a lot of time to perfect the details,’ said Future Hal, breaking eye contact with Malcolm, seemingly flattered by the acknowledgement of how much precision his team was displaying.

  ‘So, where’s Future Me?!’ said Kara, suddenly excited.

  Tension filled the air, as if the question had generated a rehearsed response from their visitors. From the barely perceptible action of Ross ceasing his data entry on his tablet, before returning to his responsibilities to sustain their time bubble within a time bubble, to the slightly more obvious sight of Ava’s smile freezing in place unnaturally. Future Hal continued onwards, hiding his unwillingness to answer the question by filling their heads with more pressing matters.

  ‘Truth be told, we’ve been following your exploits for quite some time. Years in fact. It wasn’t always straight forward. Every time you restarted the past, we had to attempt to lock on to you all over again. There were times when we lost you entirely. A last-minute decision here, a small change there…’

  ‘Yeah,’ agreed Ava. ‘You guys are like a magnet for Timestamp errors!’

  ‘Urgh, you seriously are,’ agreed Ross, recalling the countless hours of overtime he had accumulated, waiting for their unique signatures to pop back up so he could re-establish a lock.

  ‘For frosted cereal,’ said Ava, her impossibly good mood surprisingly infectious.

  ‘Timestamp error?’

  Future Hal waved his hand dismissively at Kara, as if explaining the minutia of such admin was not something she needed to trouble herself with.

  ‘How is it that you are communicating with us right now?’ asked Malcolm. ‘And how can you even see us in our current…condition.’

  Kara found herself thinking back to her brief exchange with a version of Hal from the future. Not the older man in front of her, but a version far more reminiscent to the Hal she knew and lov–

  ‘I’m guessing,’ said Kara, ‘it has something to do with those earpieces and glasses they’re all wearing.’

  Future Hal and Ava stared at her, somewhat perplexed. Even Ross looked up from his tablet, for a solid second this time. Each and every one of them wondering how she could possibly have known that.

  ‘That is…correct,’ said Future Hal suspiciously.

  ‘Oh, come on,’ said Kara, sensing the vibe and attempting to play it down. ‘You’ve got a bright blue light in your ears and shades with luminous blue lenses. It’s not that much of a leap.’

  ‘The earpieces act as a receiver, picking up even the faintest residual electronic voice phenomenon,’ said Ross, like a proud father.

  ‘You mean like…an EVP receiver?’ chuckled Hal.

  ‘What’s so funny,’ Ross suddenly becoming quite protective of his baby.

  ‘Let me guess, you’ve met my brother Alex?’

  ‘Well, he was involved in the feasibility study…’

  ‘The glasses on the other hand,’ said Ava with just a little bit too much enthusiasm. ‘They were actually my mum’s idea! They cycle through multiple phases of temporal reality like–’

  ‘Ava,’ said Future Hal, cutting her off with notable warning. ‘Perhaps another time?’

  ‘Right, sorry boss.’

  ‘And please stop calling me boss.’

  The request seemed to cause her to glitch, and she stood there with her mouth open, unable to respond, before turning back to face Hal and Kara.

  ‘You guys should know; the RI doesn't just show up in person for anyone.’

  Kara sniffed deeply, feeling irked by how much the future was clearly all about annoying shorthand labels. But it was Malcolm who saved her from sounding like she was only there to fish questions out of the stream of time.

  ‘RI?’

  Future Hal sighed, looking at Malcolm with eyes that seemed to indicate there was more history between the two men than just the current batch of restarts alone. Or perhaps he was just taking a moment to get over Ava jumping the gun. ‘The RI is an organisation that specialises in closing breaches in space time,’ he said with a hint of his younger self’s swagger.

  Though there was an air of fatigue in the delivery of those words, as if h
e had been forced into uttering them in that exact order countless times, to innumerable ears.

  “If only they knew,” he thought, spotting that his audience had noticed his tiredness, recalling the nightmarish quantity of mandatory meetings he had not just attended, but chaired. Conferences that had gone on longer than all of his historic restarts combined.

  He pressed onwards. ‘Primarily, breaches caused by the three of you, actually.’

  ‘Oh my goose, Kara,’ said Hal, his body tensing up as if he were about to explode. ‘You know what this means don’t you?’

  ‘The Time Police are a thing,’ said Kara calmly, though admittedly she too felt a small surge of adrenaline at the prospect.

  ‘The Time Police are a thing!’ said Hal, jumping on the spot. ‘And not just that, we are the freakin’ Time Police!’

  ‘More an initiative,’ said Future Hal.

  ‘What kind of initiative?’ said Malcolm, taking on board far more than anyone was giving him credit for, as he skulked in the background of a conversation that would have sent most men mad.

  ‘Wait...RI,’ said Hal, the cogs turning. ‘Oh, that is dope. It became a thing? It’s–’

  ‘Your legacy,’ said Future Hal. ‘Or should I say, our legacy.’

  ‘TDA’s are winding down,’ said Ross. We need to wrap this up.’

  The Hal of the future nodded.

  ‘Indeed. We've been here too long already. Open up a bridge to The Shire, we’re nearly done here.’

  ‘Shut the front door! Did he…I mean did I just say the Shire?’ said Hal, turning to face Kara, realising she was a lost cause and having to resort to getting the response he needed from Malcolm, and ultimately hating both of them for not being remotely fazed by that.

  ‘Once we shut down the stasis field, you will be returned to the present, but before that happens, I need to ask you something.’

  ‘What is it?’ said Kara, having trouble reading Future Hal’s expression. It was as if he was holding back, somehow.

  ‘He totally just said The Shire! You guys heard that, right?’

  Everyone continued to ignore regular Hal, as his future-self continued.

  ‘We have travelled a long way to bring an end to the singularity at Fir Lodge. We thought that ending this cycle would repair the damage that is rippling through time and damaging the future, but...’

  ‘Seriously? Is nobody picking up he said Shire?’ said Hal, wondering if perhaps he was now in a different phase altogether to all those around him.

  ‘…we were working on the assumption that the events which transpired here were the cause of this damage. After countless probability simulations, we discovered a disturbing truth.’

  ‘What truth?’ said Kara, not liking where this was going.

  ‘That we were wrong. The facture in time did not originate here. It merely culminated here. What’s worse, the RI can’t fix this by ourselves.’

  ‘Why?’ said Hal. ‘I mean you clearly have some kind of time machine deal going on here. How old are you? Like, seventy years old?’

  ‘I’m only fifty-seven!’ exclaimed Future Hal, before catching himself, straightening the lapels of his jacket and clearing his throat, realising he had stupidly imparted more information than his past-self should ever have known. “Dammit,” he thought. “Been here less than twenty minutes and you’ve already let slip your point of origin. Stupid Harold. Stupid.”

  ‘Wow, okay,’ said Hal, noting that clearly his future-self was way more sensitive about the age thing than he could have predicted. ‘Moving on…So, you’re me. From the future. You’ve jumped back in physical form somehow to 2018. What do you need us for?’

  ‘Hal has a point. I don’t really see what we can offer you here.’

  ‘Do not sell yourselves short, Kara. The three of you are more important to the future than you could possibly know.’

  ‘Ah maaaan,’ said Hal. ‘The three of us? You mean Biff Tannen here has to come too?’

  ‘I’m standing right here, Harold,’ said Malcolm coldly.

  ‘Sssh,’ said Hal, ‘the adults are talking. Spill then, what do you need us to do?’

  Future Hal looked over at Ross, who nodded to indicate the bridge was ready to rock, then back to Ava, before nodding and smiling at her, making good on his promise that she could have her mic-drop moment. He was too old for them these days anyway. He lacked the required…energy.

  Ava smiled back, a small squeak of joy escaping her lips, as she walked closer to the three Restarters.

  ‘Oh, you know. No big deal,’ shrugging as if it were just that, before adopting what Hal assumed was an attempt at mimicking Batman. ‘We just need you to save the world.’

  ‘Was that your Batman impression?’ said Hal, staring back at her.

  ‘Maybe,’ replied Ava, maintaining the intense stare, a rebellious smile cracking beneath the blue glow of her glasses, which danced across her jacket like a drunk Kryptonian using X-Ray vision to find their house keys.

  ‘Pretty solid,’ conceded Hal.

  ‘Thank you!’ Ava replied gruffly.

  ‘Okay, you can stop now,’ said Kara.

  ‘I don’t know how,’ continued Ava, now in full-on Dark Knight Mode and apparently stuck there for the foreseeable.

  ‘So how does this work?’ said Hal. ‘When we get back to the present, we won’t remember any of this. And surely you’ll all cease to exist now the Fir Lodge problem is done and dusted?’

  ‘It’s…complicated,’ said Future Hal, responding to his younger self.

  ‘Isn’t it always?’ replied Kara.

  ‘I want to bring you in. I can find you. But I wanted to give you the choice I never had.’

  ‘Are we joining a Time Travel police force?’ asked Hal, raising an eyebrow and refusing to accept his future-self had chosen those words specifically without knowing their significance. ‘Or becoming vampires?

  Future Hal smiled knowingly, as if the act caused him pain of some kind. ‘So, are you in or out? We can leave you to your present and you can take the long way around, just like I did, or you can get a head start on your own destinies.’

  ‘Will we get cool time travel gadgets?’ asked Hal, as if that would be the deal breaker.

  ‘Urgh,’ grumbled Kara. ‘Don’t say it like that!’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because it sounds ridiculous!’

  ‘Time travel gadgets?’ Future Hal cut in, ending their bickering. ‘They’re all packed up and waiting for you,’ he added, reaching up to the frame of his Restarter-blue lensed glasses, pulling them fractionally down the bridge of his nose and dispensing an awkward wink, that oddly didn’t suit him quite the same way it suited his younger incarnation.

  Ross and Ava shared an uneasy glance. One that was entirely missed by the Hal of the present as he turned back to face Kara.

  ‘What do you think, Kar’? Couldn’t hurt to take a look, right?’

  Kara could see how actively her friend was trying to play it down, as well as how much it would crush him if she decided she wasn’t on board. She made him wait for two seconds longer than necessary, sensing the imminent explosion that was building beneath his nonchalant exterior.

  ‘Why the hell not,’ she said finally, defusing the Hal-Bomb by clipping the blue wire of his anticipation and putting him out of his misery. ‘If anything, it’ll be worth it just to meet my future self!’

  ‘Excellent,’ said Future Hal, utilising selective hearing to ignore her reasoning. ‘Ross, shut it down.’

  Ross nodded, showing what appeared to be relief that he had carried out his duties without any unexpected hiccups.

  ‘A moment, if you will,’ said Malcolm, causing all eyes to land on him. ‘If I may, I’d like to confer with my…with Hal and Kara?’

  ‘Oh my god, were you about to say friends?!’ said Kara, half joking, but half wondering if that was indeed what they were now. They’d been through so much together, and yet it was a hard dynamic to quantify.
/>   ‘I hardly think that misnomer applies to us,’ said Malcolm, lowering his voice so that only the two of them could hear him. ‘Nevertheless, I want to thank you both. For everything you’ve sacrificed. For your help in ending this hell.’

  ‘So, what’s your plan now,’ said Hal, trying to figure out what would happen to this incarnation of Malcolm now that his chain of restarts had been truly severed. With his Dark Restarter-self defeated, it seemed to Hal there was nowhere for this version of him to go.

  ‘There’s nowhere left for me to go,’ said Malcolm, as if reading his mind, his words causing Hal to steal a glance downwards to make sure they weren’t inadvertently connected. ‘At best, I will awaken in the hospital. At worst...’