Continuum: Time Rep

by Peter Ward

  Time Rep:

  Continuum

  Peter Ward

  Copyright

  Diversion Books

  A Division of Diversion Publishing Corp.

  443 Park Avenue South, Suite 1008

  New York, NY 10016

  www.DiversionBooks.com

  Copyright © 2016 by Peter Ward

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  For more information, email info@diversionbooks.com

  First Diversion Books edition May 2016

  ISBN: 978-1-68230-063-3

  Also by Peter Ward

  Time Rep

  Note to Self

  For Andrea

  Ten

  There are very few circumstances in which waking up with no memory can be described as a good thing. In fact, not knowing crucial things such as who you are, where you are, what you do for a living, who your friends are, or where to find the nearest kettle is generally described as rather bad. There are exceptions to this rule, of course: if you were a politician, for instance, waking up with no memory that you were a politician would probably be pretty good. Suddenly, you wouldn’t feel the need to gesture with your hands unnecessarily every time you spoke, or respond to difficult questions with the answer to a completely different question you would have much rather been asked. You’d be a normal person again, albeit one with no memory.

  Geoffrey Stamp wasn’t a politician, so the fact that he’d completely lost his memory was not a good thing. As it happened, Geoffrey had a pretty interesting job—he just couldn’t remember what it was. He didn’t even know he had a job, what a job was, or that his name was Geoffrey Stamp. His name could have been Elizabeth Perkins for all he knew, except his mind was so devoid of any memory that he wasn’t aware of the social conventions that meant people had names, or that the name Elizabeth was associated with the female of his species, or that his species had females, or that he even belonged to a species. The only thing Geoffrey Stamp knew was that he was extraordinarily confused.

  But Geoffrey was a very fast learner, and he was learning that he was a fast learner very…well, fast. Within moments of waking up, he realized that he had some arms. He thought this discovery was a pretty good start, although he wasn’t quite aware yet that they were called arms. He was aware that he could move them a bit just by thinking, and that the arms had hands on the ends of them, but that was about it. The hands moved too, when he thought about it, but something was preventing him from moving them as much as he wanted to. This only added to Geoffrey’s state of confusion, and as he became reacquainted with the rest of his physical form, he soon discovered that the reason he couldn’t move was that he was lying on his back, restrained to something cold and hard with two thick straps wrapped over his arms and legs. This, along with waking up with no memory, was also something you would rarely describe as being good, unless of course you were into that sort of thing.

  He began to squirm around uncomfortably in his restraints, trying to break free. He didn’t know why he had the urge to do this; it was just instinctive, a bit like having the urge to run away whenever “Come on Eileen” played on the radio. Above him, a number of big bright things shone in his eyes. He didn’t like this either, and began to think of the best way to communicate his displeasure. In the end, he opted to open and close his mouth like a newly born baby discovering how to use its facial muscles for the first time.

  “So, has anyone got any ideas?”

  Geoff stopped opening and closing his mouth and kept still for a moment. This wasn’t because he’d understood any of what had just been said, but because he’d registered a noise. There had been no sound up until this point, and so the discovery of another sensory stimulus had momentarily distracted him from what he was doing.

  “Come on—anyone? I mean, this is impossible, right?”

  There it was again. That noise. Sounded familiar, but he didn’t know why. He decided to turn his head over to see where it was coming from, taking in more details of his surroundings as he did so. Everything he could see was pretty featureless, with the exception of the very bright things hanging above him. When he finished turning his head to one side, he noticed that something else that also had arms and legs was looking back at him. For some reason, though, this thing was not restrained as he was, and was in an upright position. A number of other upright things with arms and legs were also staring at him. Geoff began to fight his restraints again, but they were too strong. Eventually, he gave up and slumped back on the cold hard thing underneath him.

  There must be a perfectly good reason why I am restrained in this way, so I will try and keep my composure was not a thought that ran through Geoff’s mind as he lay in this primitive mental state. Instead, he started to open and close his mouth again, only this time he discovered that he could make a loud noise.

  “Jesus! What’s happening? Why is he screaming?”

  “I don’t know, Dr. Skivinski—can someone give him another shot?”

  All of a sudden, Geoff felt something hold his arm down. This was followed by a sharp prick. Then something cool felt as though it were surging underneath his skin toward his head. Then he felt the urge to stop making the loud noise. Then his body went numb. Then he stuck his tongue out and drooled down the left side of his face.

  “Okay—is he in a stable condition?”

  “Yes.”

  “And the bullet?”

  “We managed to remove it safely,” the first noise…replied.

  Wait a minute—yes, the first noise was replying to the second one! And these noises—they were voices! These…things with arms and legs…these people…had to open their…mouths to…to…speak! Geoff was listening to a…conversation!

  This recollection of people’s anatomy, the fact that they were talking to each other, and the associated vocabulary to describe everything that was going on was probably the most momentous achievement Geoff had ever known, although at this point he couldn’t remember that he’d actually achieved some other pretty major things in the past, like saving the planet.

  “Is he going to be all right?”

  “I think so—the bullet missed his spinal column by a few inches, and it didn’t puncture any major organs. He’s lucky to be alive…”

  Geoff began to recognize the person who was doing most of the talking. He didn’t quite know who it was, but somehow they looked familiar.

  Suddenly, another person…a man…burst through a door in the far corner of the room and ran over to join the others. This one looked familiar too, but again, Geoff couldn’t place him. The man looked exhausted, hunching over for a few seconds to get his breath back before saying anything.

  “I don’t…believe it,” the man huffed, straightening up to look at Geoff. “Is it true?”

  “It’s true, Tim,” the voice Geoff had first heard replied. “What you’re looking at is a future version of Geoffrey Stamp.”

  The man gulped down more air before speaking again.

  “A future version?” he said. “But how can that be?”

  “We’ve got no idea. All we know is that four hours ago, he materialized on Tower Bridge and collapsed in the street with a bullet in his back. When the police arrived on the scene, they instantly recognized him and brought him to this hospital. The doctors performed emergency surgery on him to remove the bullet, and he’s been under observation in here ever since.”

  Although Geoffrey could hear the words being spoken, at
this stage he didn’t understand a word of it—his mind was having enough trouble as it was, and in light of this had decided to put speech recognition on the back burner for a moment. Geoff kept listening to them speak, but for all he knew, these people could have been having a debate about what the difference was between a nectarine and a peach, or why men under fifty didn’t wear hats with suits anymore.

  “Is he all right?” the man said.

  “He’s fine—we just gave him another shot to calm him down.”

  “Why is he tied down?”

  “We had to restrain him. When they brought him here he was convulsing really violently. It was horrible.”

  “You tried talking to him?”

  “He’s only just woken up.”

  The man walked closer to Geoff and looked down at him.

  “Geoff?” he said, narrowing his eyes as he stared into Geoff’s empty gaze. “Geoff, it’s me! It’s Tim! Can you hear me?”

  Despite his body feeling numb, Geoffrey was able to stick out his tongue and blow a very small raspberry.

  The man looked up at the others and smiled. “He recognizes me!”

  “No,” one of the others replied. “He’s been doing that periodically for the last two hours. He seems to enjoy it.”

  The man shook his head. “Damn it,” he said. “What the hell happened to him? Eric—can’t you tell us anything?”

  “I’m afraid we know very little,” said the other main voice. “Almost everything about this future version of Geoff is a complete mystery. We don’t know how he was able to travel back through time, we don’t know why he was shot, and we don’t know why he appears to have lost his memory.”

  “So what do we know?”

  “Well, firstly, he had this in his jacket pocket,” the other person said, holding up a small white card. It had some dark squiggles on it. To most people these squiggles would be called writing, but to Geoff they were squiggles.

  “Is that…a Continuum business card?”

  “It is. And it’s got Geoffrey’s name on it.”

  “That explains why he’s looking so smart. I’ve never seen him look this well groomed. Where did you find this?”

  “Inside pocket of the suit jacket he was wearing.”

  “Suit jacket? But Geoff doesn’t own a suit…”

  “Well that’s what he had on when we found him. It’s hanging up over there.”

  “Huh.” The voice got quieter as the man walked over to the other side of the room. “Let’s have a look at this…wait a minute! This is my suit!”

  “What?”

  “See on the left sleeve where one of the buttons is missing? This is an old suit I was thinking of throwing away! What the hell was Geoff doing in it?”

  “We have no idea.”

  “Okay—for now, let’s not worry about what we don’t know. Let’s go through what we do know. If Geoff has a Continuum business card with his name on it, then it’s safe to assume he leaves Time Tours at some point in the future to go and work for them. Correct?”

  “I suppose so…”

  “Okay. What else have we got?”

  “Well, there’s the bullet we removed from Geoff’s back.”

  “What about it?”

  “Well, it was very…unusual. It’s much larger than any caliber I know of, and made from a material that I’ve never seen before—a new element that won’t register on any of our scans.”

  “Well, at least a new element gives us something to go on—if this bullet is exotic, we might be able to trace it. So we’ve got a weird bullet and a Continuum business card. Anything else?”

  “Yes—there’s this scar on his right wrist.”

  Geoff watched as the two men leaned over his body and looked closely at something.

  “We don’t know what it is, but it looks like an injection mark. Six small dots surrounding a bigger dot in the middle.”

  “Hmm. Any idea what he was injected with?”

  “I’m afraid not. But what I can tell you is that judging by the amount of healing, this was done recently.”

  “Okay. Anything else?”

  “Well, there is one other thing.”

  “What is it?”

  “This version of Geoff—he’s from just one day in the future.”

  “A day? You mean he’s from tomorrow?”

  “That’s right. He’s just over twenty-four hours older than the present-day Geoff.”

  “You sure about that?”

  “Absolutely. The date on his watch says so.”

  “Wow—that really doesn’t give us much time to figure out what the hell happened here. Where’s the present-day Geoff at the moment? We need to speak to him as quickly as possible.”

  “Sorry I’m late,” a new voice said from the door. “What did I miss?”

  One

  In the two years Geoff had been working as a Time Rep, he’d been called to only three emergency meetings, and one of those he didn’t turn up to because something interesting came on the television while he was putting his coat on and made him forget why he was going out. The other two meetings didn’t turn out to be that important—the first one was after his first week on the job, when he had nearly told his friend Zoë what he really did for a living—that he worked for a company based in the future called Time Tours. He remembered them calling him in for a meeting afterward and holding him in a small room for hours while a very stern man with a thin moustache explained why no one from his time period could know that he met tourists from the thirty-first century and showed them around twenty-first-century London.

  “If someone from your time has any knowledge of future events,” he was told, “it could create a paradox.”

  “Ah,” Geoff had replied. “Those are very bad, aren’t they?”

  “Yes, they are. And the reason they are very bad is because they have a nasty habit of destroying everything that has ever existed. Remember?”

  “Yes, I remember, I remember. But surely telling Zoë wouldn’t be that bad? I mean, at the very worst it would only create a tiny little paradox, no?”

  “A tiny little paradox?”

  “Yeah. You know, really small.”

  The man with the thin moustache shut his eyes and sighed.

  “The scale of the paradox doesn’t matter, Mr. Stamp—big or small, they cause all sorts of problems, like the unraveling of the space-time continuum.”

  “Oh.”

  “Yes, ‘oh.’ And the space-time continuum is not like a sweater, Mr. Stamp—it cannot be easily re-raveled, so let’s not let that happen, okay?”

  Geoff wasn’t sure if a sweater could easily be re-raveled (it sounded pretty hard to him the more he imagined trying to actually do it), but decided to keep quiet. He was already in enough trouble as it was, so he didn’t think questioning this man’s knowledge of sweater construction was particularly wise—he needed to focus on not causing any paradoxes.

  If this meeting had been happening at any normal company, Geoff could imagine this conversation being captured in some sort of “personal development” paperwork:

  Objective 1: Improve my networking skills in the wider business.

  Objective 2: Offer a quality customer experience to all tourists from the future.

  Objective 3: Do not destroy the universe.

  But Time Tours was no normal company.

  In fact, most people would have described it as pretty unusual.

  The second emergency meeting he had attended was a few months ago. This one seemed to be quite a big deal, because it was held in a huge conference room in the Time Tours building, and every Time Rep was there. Over two hundred men and women from throughout history had been summoned, from 3000 BC cavemen to twenty-ninth-century galactic colonists. As far as Geoff knew, it was the first time since the company had started that they had all been in the same room together at once, and seeing such a huge variety of people from across time was quite special. William Boyle, the Time Rep Geoff had met during his introductory
tour of the Great Fire of London, was there, along with many other Reps he had heard about.

  In this meeting, the chief executive of Time Tours herself, Ruth Ashmore, told them all about a new company called Continuum, which was also offering holidays to the past. However, unlike Time Tours, which required every tourist to be scanned by a supercomputer before they went back in time as a safeguard to ensure they weren’t going to change history, Continuum claimed they had the technology to allow tourists to go back in time and change what they liked, without disrupting anything in the present. Nobody knew how it was possible, but the claims appeared to be true, and as a result a lot of people were starting to book their holidays to the past through Continuum instead. The meeting ended with Ruth asking all Time Reps to keep an eye on things in their native time periods, and to inform them if anything unusual happened. In the months that followed, Geoff hadn’t noticed anything particularly different, apart from one week when his local supermarket had decided to stop selling his favorite breakfast cereal. But after having a word with the manager, they put it back in again, so he didn’t think that had much to do with Continuum.

  Oh, and his neighbor bought a pet rabbit.

  Other than that, there was nothing to report.

  So here he was for another emergency meeting. Based on his past experience of these things, he hadn’t really taken it that seriously when Eric had called and told him to come to the future immediately. In fact, instead of leaving the twenty-first century straight away, he’d brushed his teeth, made himself a cup of tea, and watched the first few minutes of an old Star Trek: The Next Generation episode while he drank it. It was the many episodes where Captain Jean-Luc Picard kept tugging at his uniform to stop it from riding up, which amused him. After about five minutes, he put on the standard-issue earphones Time Tours had given him to travel back and forth between his own time and theirs, and left. As he arrived in the thirty-first century, though, he began to wonder if perhaps this emergency meeting really was an emergency. After all, it was a little unusual for Eric to call him in person, and he’d detected a hint of nervousness in Eric’s voice when he’d told Geoff to come to the future as quickly as he could. And why had Eric asked him to meet them in a hospital operating theater?