by Jason Ayres
“Sounds like that’s all sorted,” said Lauren, who had just escorted the last two customers off the premises and locked the front door. “Now let’s stop talking about all this boring stuff and get on to what we really came here to do.”
She looked up towards the ceiling and said, “Pub – party mode – 2018.”
The ceiling panels slid smoothly aside, revealing a solid liquid crystal display which quickly filled the room with brightly coloured lights. At the same time, music filled the room from the speakers embedded in the walls and floor.
“Remember this?” shouted Lauren over the opening bars of the old Dua Lipa and Calvin Harris hit, “One Kiss”.
“I put this playlist together especially for tonight – it’s all the biggest hits from when we were in sixth form. Come on, Kaylee, let’s dance!”
She grabbed her former school friend’s hand and practically dragged her from her seat.
There were going to be some sore heads in the morning.
Chapter Five
July 2056
It was high summer in Oxford, the Botanical Gardens were blooming, and people everywhere were out enjoying the heatwave that had spread across the country. It was hot, and very humid, the sort of British weather that inevitably broke down into thunderstorms after a few days.
Not everyone was out making the most of the weather. Josh, Alice, Henry and Vanessa had spent the whole summer holed up in the lab at the university, working feverishly to bring their big project to fruition.
The college was quiet at this time of year. The rowdy students who had been casting off their mortar boards whilst downing gallons of champagne the previous month had all moved on to pastures new, with the next set of freshers not due to arrive until late September. The main noise outside the lab in midsummer came from the steady stream of tourists taking pictures in the Quadrangle.
As was often the case, Alice wasn’t happy about the amount of time they were spending in the lab. She had always found Josh’s obsessional work ethic frustrating, and now he had two similarly-minded people making it even worse. As they got closer and closer to a breakthrough, they were working seven days a week and often until after midnight.
It was Sunday and Alice wanted Josh to take the day off and come to Kaylee and Charlie’s legendary annual barbecue.
“You have to come,” Kaylee had implored her on the phone last night. “Both the boys are going to be here. You haven’t seen them for ages. And Jess is bringing a new boyfriend apparently – you’ll have to meet him.”
It was true, Alice hadn’t seen Charlie and Kaylee’s boys, both now grown-up, for a couple of years. It was also a good while since she had seen Jess, Peter and Hannah’s daughter, who had also flown the nest. Time seemed to be flying by so fast and there were days she still regretted not having kids of her own.
After much haranguing of her husband the previous evening, Josh had compromised and said he would go later in the afternoon once they’d finished a crucial test that apparently had to be completed today. She had made him promise but she knew what he was like, and by 3pm Alice was frustratedly watching the three of them crouched around a large monitor screen showing no signs of packing up for the day.
This had been the routine for much of the previous three months, and Alice was not happy. There had been too many meals missed, too many late nights and too little attention of any sort from her husband, both sexual and otherwise. He had even forgotten their wedding anniversary.
She couldn’t deny that the commitment of the three of them to the project meant that they had made huge progress, but Alice just wasn’t as invested in it as they were, even if the idea of extending her life was appealing.
They had reached the point where they were almost ready to experiment with projecting consciousness back in time, but Alice couldn’t understand the huge urgency about it all. It wasn’t as if any of them were likely to die anytime soon. If they really were going to cheat death by taking refuge in their earlier selves, surely they had a good couple of decades before they’d have to start worrying about it.
She felt that all work and no play was making Josh a dull boy. What was the point of being alive if you couldn’t take time out to enjoy it? Knowing Josh, even if they succeeded in the experiment and he got a second chance at life, he would probably still spend it all in the lab. His work/life balance was all wrong and it was time she put her foot down about it.
“Look, Josh, this isn’t on,” she said. “I promised Kaylee last night we would go, and it starts at three and it’s gone that already.”
“It won’t be much longer,” said Josh, “an hour or two at most.”
“You said that last Friday, remember, when we had tickets for the theatre? And we missed the whole of the first act. And what is it you are even doing? It looks to me like you’re just watching numbers on a screen.”
“There are a huge number of calculations to process,” said Henry, who was dressed in a lurid pink and yellow concoction which was covered in various designs of sunglasses. “It runs into the trillions of trillions which is a lot even with the processing power we’re packing here. When it finishes, we’ll have a definitive answer as to whether or not this is going to work.”
“And does it require you to be here when it does?” asked Alice. “Can’t you just monitor it remotely?”
“We could,” said Josh. “But this is a momentous occasion, the equivalent of the apple falling on Newton’s head. We need to be here.”
“Alice does have a point, though,” said Vanessa, unusually offering Alice some support. “We don’t all need to be here watching over it, do we? Henry, why don’t you take Alice to the party and we’ll follow on after you? You are dressed for it, after all.”
“I’m permanently dressed for a party,” replied Henry. “And you’re right – we don’t all need to be here, especially as the result is pretty much a foregone conclusion. And I must say I could just fancy a barbie. We haven’t had many opportunities for them since we’ve been over here.”
The British summer had been dull and damp up until the last week when the hot weather had finally arrived.
“I’m surprised you’d even noticed the weather had warmed up,” said Alice. “All three of you have barely been outside for the past week.”
“I’ve noticed,” said Henry. “What are all these bloody little insects that keep crawling over me?”
As he spoke, he brushed several tiny flies off his arm.
“They’re thunderbugs: don’t you get them down under?” asked Alice.
“We do, but they’re a lot bigger than this,” said Henry.
“Thunderbugs, that means a thunderstorm’s coming, right?” asked Vanessa.
“Possibly,” said Alice.
“I thought your friend Kaylee was the country’s top weather expert,” said Vanessa. “Seems like pretty poor planning to organise a barbie if it’s going to get washed out.”
“Kaylee planned this party weeks ago,” replied Alice. “Even she can’t forecast the weather that far ahead.”
“OK, well, I think that you and Henry should go to the party then and we’ll follow on as soon as it’s done. We’ll be alright here, won’t we, Josh?”
Alice saw the look that Vanessa gave her husband and didn’t like it. She had more than a sneaking suspicion that Vanessa had a soft spot for Josh and wondered if it was wise to leave them alone together.
It didn’t help that over the past few months Vanessa and Henry’s relationship hadn’t improved; if anything, it had got worse. They weren’t too bad when they were focused on the project, but in any social situation they had shown increasing signs of the mutual loathing that had been apparent ever since that first day in Canberra.
She wasn’t comfortable with leaving Josh and Vanessa alone, but it was too late to back down now as Henry was already getting to his feet. She could have insisted that Josh came with her instead, leaving Henry and Vanessa alone in the lab, but she didn’t trust them enough to suggest
that. She wouldn’t put it past them to snoop around, even steal some of their technology.
“Promise you’ll call me as soon as it finishes to let me know the outcome?” said Henry to Josh.
“I will,” said Josh. “And tell Charlie to put plenty of beer in the fridge. This is thirsty work.”
“Don’t eat too many sausages, Henry,” said Vanessa. “We wouldn’t want you keeling over with a heart attack, would we?”
Her tone suggested that was exactly what she’d like, but Alice bit her tongue, not wanting to inflame things any further. However, as soon as she got Henry on his own she was going to say something.
Emerging, blinking into the bright sunshine, they strolled across the Quadrangle, dodging the tourists and headed out on to St Giles’. There they hailed one of the many auto cabs that were now ubiquitous in every town and city around Britain. Once inside, Alice told the car her address, let it scan her retina for payment, and then they sat back and relaxed while it drove them a few miles out of town to Charlie and Kaylee’s country cottage.
“This is nice and easy, don’t you think?” remarked Alice as they glided along Banbury Road in the auto cab lane. “You should have seen this city a generation ago – choked with traffic and pollution everywhere. I’m amazed that people put up with it.”
“You can thank the world’s governments and energy companies for that,” replied Henry. “They could have developed the electric car and renewable energy a lot earlier if they had made it a priority.”
“Absolutely,” said Alice. “I campaigned for it while I was growing up. I was inspired by Greta Thunberg to organise a strike at my school.”
“It worked, too,” said Henry. “It’s amazing the progress we’ve made since then. She really deserved that Nobel Peace Prize.”
“I don’t miss sitting in the Oxford traffic jams, that’s for sure,” said Alice.
“It’s nice being ferried around but these cabs are a little soulless. I have to say, I miss driving. When I was a young man, I had a sporty little Mazda, electric, of course. One summer, my girlfriend and I drove the whole east coast from Cairns all the way down to Melbourne over a few weeks. It was amazing.”
“Oh, wow, that must have been awesome,” said Alice. “When I was a student, I took a gap year and spent months backpacking around Australia. I hitch-hiked up part of that road, after I left Sydney.”
“Did you visit the Blue Mountains?” asked Henry.
“Oh, yes, they are beautiful,” replied Alice.
“My girlfriend thought so, too,” said Henry. “Those were happy days.”
“I take it this wasn’t Vanessa?”
“Goodness, no, she’d never be interested in doing anything like that,” replied Henry. “Time is money as far as she’s concerned – a jaunt like that would be an unprofitable way to spend her time.”
Alice seized this opportunity to delve further into their unconventional relationship.
“You know, I hope you don’t mind me saying, but I do find it hard to picture how you two got together in the first place. I can’t believe the way she talks to you, for a start. Doesn’t it bother you?”
“It’s all water off a duck’s back to me,” said Henry. “And you’re right, it’s not a marriage made in Heaven. It’s more one of convenience if you want to put a label on it. When we met we both had something each other wanted.”
“Which was?”
“She’s got money. A huge amount of money – in terms of Australian dollars she’s practically a billionaire. But I’m not a gold-digger – I’m more interested in investing the money into research, rather than using it for personal gain.”
“And what do you give her in return?”
“I’m the leading scientist in the world in my field of robotics and mind-mapping. She’s obsessed with achieving eternal life by transferring her consciousness before death and she offered to bankroll me to make it happen. I could never have done it on the institute’s money alone, generous as it is.”
“But you didn’t need to get married for that?”
“Maybe not, but it seemed a good idea at the time. It may seem hard to believe now but she didn’t totally detest me back at the start. Or if she did, she was very good at hiding it.”
“She doesn’t bother hiding it anymore,” replied Alice.
“I suppose not, but I can’t be bothered to do anything about it, and despite all the backbiting, we do work well as a team and it’s not just about her money. She’s got a brilliant mind, too, as you’ve seen these past weeks, and I wouldn’t have got as far as I have without her input, regardless of the money.”
“And she’s plenty of that,” said Alice.
“That’s down to her incredibly business brain. She wouldn’t have become as rich as she has without it. It’s all self-made money, you know.”
“And you’re happy to carry on like this?” asked Alice.
“For the time being,” replied Henry. “Put it this way, though, if we do manage to succeed in this project and I get the chance to go back and relive my life, I highly doubt I’ll marry her again second time around. I may not need her money the second time as long as I can retain the knowledge of how to do all this, or even take the technology with me in some way.”
“I’d still marry Josh, for all his faults,” replied Alice.
“Which are?”
“Well, there’s his showing off, big-headedness, and obsession over time travel, just for starters. But none of that matters because I love him, and I just can’t imagine being with anyone else.”
“It must be nice to feel that way about someone,” said Henry. “I’m pretty sure I did – all those years ago with Bronwyn – the girl I went on that road trip with. But we were young, and our lives took us in different directions. I often think about her, but it’s way too late now.”
“Maybe it’s not,” replied Alice. “If we do succeed and you get the chance to live again, what’s to stop you going back to that time and doing things differently? If you loved Bronwyn, then perhaps you could stay with her this time.”
“Believe me, the thought has crossed my mind,” replied Henry, as the car left the outskirts of the city behind and turned onto a small country road. “Wow, I so love your countryside here – it’s all so green. It’s nothing like this back home.”
“True, but we do have to put up with a lot of rain to keep it like that,” said Alice.
“I had kind of noticed that,” said Henry. “It’s hardly stopped raining since we got here – but not today, at least not so far.”
“Let’s hope it stays that way,” said Alice.
As the car continued down the road under perfect clear skies, Josh and Vanessa were deep in conversation back at the lab.
“How much longer is this going to take?” asked Vanessa, as Josh continued to pore over the ever-changing flow of numbers on the screen in front of him.
“No more than a few minutes, I hope,” replied Josh. “Then we’ll have our answer.”
“I must say you are most trusting of your wife, allowing her to go off with Henry like that,” said Vanessa.
“What makes you say that?” asked Josh.
“Come on, you and Henry must have talked about it: I know what you men are like when you get together. Henry’s got an eye for the ladies. He’s slept with other women behind my back over the years, I know that for sure. And not just humans either. Do you remember Dani, the robot? He’s been shagging that ever since he built it. It even lives in our house. In fact, I’m surprised he didn’t bring it over here.”
“No offence, Vanessa, but you two are hardly a match made in Heaven, are you? You already told us you’ve got separate bedrooms.”
“Quite right,” she said. “Henry and I haven’t had sex for years. Whatever we once had, which wasn’t a lot to begin with, died a long time ago.”
“Why don’t you just divorce him if you’re that unhappy?” asked Josh.
“Believe me, as soon as all this is over, I wil
l,” said Vanessa. “You don’t know what it’s like being married to him. You see the friendly, party guy image he likes to portray with those ridiculous outfits he wears, but you don’t know what goes on behind closed doors. You couldn’t even begin to imagine the mental and even physical abuse I’ve endured over the years.”
Josh tore his eyes away from the screen to look directly at her, weighing up what she was saying. Was she telling the truth? He had spent a lot of time with Henry over the past few months and found it hard to believe what she was saying.
“From what I’ve seen it looks like it’s the other way around,” said Josh. “You’re constantly making little digs at him all day long, and he just puts up with it.”
“He’s clever like that,” replied Vanessa. “He’s manipulative to make it look like it’s all down to me. That’s what abusive men do. Still, I suppose I’ve only myself to blame for marrying him in the first place. I should have chosen someone like you.”
She was looking at him imploringly, with puppy dog eyes, which made Josh feel extremely uncomfortable. Was she coming on to him? He tried to backtrack a little.
“To answer your earlier question, I’ve got no worries about her taking a cab with Henry. Whether or not he’s got a roving eye, Alice certainly would put him straight if he tried anything on.”
“What about you? Are you happy with her?”
“Yes, of course,” said Josh. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
“Oh, I don’t know – don’t you find her a bit boring? You know you could have a lot more fun with me.”
She gave him her best alluring look.
“Are you flirting with me?” asked Josh, alarmed at what she was clearly suggesting.
“What if I was?” she asked. “Wouldn’t you be tempted? It’s not just business I’m good at. I’m a girl of many talents. I could show you right here, right now, on the desk and no one would ever know.”
“I’d know!” protested Josh. “Look, I’m sorry if I’ve given you any indication I might be interested in you, but as far as I’m concerned our relationship is strictly professional and that’s the way it’s going to stay.”