Continuum: Time Rep

by Peter Ward

Six

  “Hugh?” Geoff said. “Who’s Hugh? Do I know him?”

  “Not Hugh, you idiot,” Tim said, “It’s you! You!”

  “Me?”

  Tim rolled his eyes. “Yes! It’s the future version of Geoffrey Stamp! The future one from the future! He’s calling from the hospital!”

  “My God!” Geoff ran over to Tim, leaning his head as close to the phone as possible. “Is he all right? ARE YOU ALL RIGHT?”

  “Hang on a second,” Tim said, turning away and pressing the earpiece closer to his ear. “Geoff,” he said into the receiver, “hold on a minute. I’ve got the other Geoff here as well. Are you sure it’s okay to talk like this with him here?”

  Tim listened to a reply for a few seconds, nodding. Geoff tried to hear what was being said on the other end of the line, but couldn’t make anything out. It was like trying to listen to pirate radio through a wet sponge.

  “I see,” Tim said. He turned to Geoff. “He says he remembers being in the room when I was on the phone to his future self, so it must be okay for you to be here now.”

  “So I can stay?”

  “Apparently.”

  Tim listened to the phone again for a few seconds, then turned to Geoff again. “But he says I told you to sit down over there,” he said, pointing back toward the chairs in the middle of the room.

  “Okay,” Geoff said, not sitting down.

  Tim looked at Geoff in silence, waiting for him to move.

  “Oh,” Geoff said. “Does that mean I have to sit down now?”

  “Yes,” Tim replied. “And don’t worry—the Geoff on the other end of this phone says he’ll talk to you later.”

  “Okay. But is he all right?”

  “He’s fine. Looks like his memory came back quicker than we were expecting.”

  Geoff still hadn’t sat down. He was kind of hoping Tim had forgotten to tell him to leave them alone to their conversation, so he could eavesdrop on it.

  “Please, Geoff,” Tim said. “Sit down.”

  Geoff stamped his feet all the way back to the chair and lowered himself down into it slowly.

  Well, this was annoying.

  He really, really wanted to know what Tim and his future self were talking about, but instead he was just sat in this chair, alone. He felt like a kid at a dinner party for grownups, made to sit at a smaller table by themselves, eating chicken nuggets while everyone else enjoyed a five-course meal and had interesting conversations about things he wasn’t allowed to know about.

  “Okay,” he heard Tim say. “You can talk now.”

  Despite Tim being quite far away, Geoff could just about make out his end of the conversation. Unfortunately, what followed was a long period of silence, which wasn’t exactly helpful.

  “Who told you this?” he heard Tim say eventually.

  A pause.

  “You met with Jennifer Adams herself?”

  Another pause.

  “I knew it,” Tim said. “So what did they ask you to do for them instead?”

  Now a very small pause.

  “Nothing?”

  And now a slightly longer pause. These pauses were getting a bit tedious.

  “I see. So what happened next?”

  Next there was an unbearably long pause, which must have lasted at least two or three minutes. Geoff began to get agitated.

  One thing that Geoff found quite useful when trying to figure out what his future self was saying was how the expression on Tim’s face changed as he listened. Geoff found himself studying his friend very closely, as his mannerisms were quite a good bellwether for the tone of the conversation. At the start of the phone call he had looked entertained. Then he looked extremely happy. Then in the middle he looked quite shocked, and then he looked extremely sad. In fact, he looked devastated, his entire body slumping against the window for a few seconds. By the end he straightened himself up, but it was quite obvious that he was worried about something.

  Then finally he looked angry.

  Extremely angry.

  “That bloody…” he trailed off, as if he’d suddenly remembered that the present-day Geoff was still, well, present. He took a deep breath. “Well, that certainly explains everything,” he said. “But how come—”

  Tim stopped speaking and listened, as if the future Geoff had already anticipated the question and was answering it.

  “I see.” Tim looked over at Geoff. “Well, I think you and I need to get over there right away, don’t you?”

  A pause. Future Geoff was speaking.

  “Of course—you’re right. We need to let your past self do his thing first, otherwise you won’t be speaking to me now. Good thinking.”

  “Okay,” Geoff said, getting to his feet. “I’ve had just about as much of this as I can take. Will someone tell me what the hell is going on?”

  “Geoff,” Tim said into the phone. “Your past self has lost his temper over here. Didn’t you say you were going to speak with yourself?” He listened for a few seconds, nodding. “Okay,” Tim replied. “After I send Geoff to Continuum, I’ll come and pick you up from the hospital.”

  Another pause.

  “Good thinking,” Tim said. “After I come and get you, we’ll go over there and explain the situation. Hopefully they should be able to help us.”

  Another pause, very brief this time.

  “Uh…sure.”

  And another bloody pause.

  “No, I won’t forget! Look, here’s Geoff for you.” And with that, Tim handed the phone over to Geoff.

  “Hello?” Geoff said, putting the earpiece to his ear and holding the receiver stand up to his mouth.

  “Hello, Geoff,” came a voice at the other end of the line. Geoff flinched. He hated the sound of his own voice—particularly when he could hear how it sounded to everyone else.

  “Hello,” Geoff said again. Now that he’d put up such a big fuss about wanting to know what was going on, he didn’t really know what to say.

  “I know how you’re feeling,” his other self said. “Now that you’ve put up such a big fuss about wanting to know what’s going on, you don’t really know what to say, do you?”

  “There’s not much point in lying and saying I know exactly what I want to ask you, is there?”

  “Not really. I can still remember your half of the conversation pretty well. Next you’re going to ask me if I can tell you everything I just told Tim, and the answer is no. Then you’re going to say ‘drat.’”

  “Can you tell me everything you just told Tim?”

  “No.”

  “Drat.”

  “I’m sorry, Geoff, but if I share any information with you about the future, it might make you behave differently. And it is critical that things transpire for you exactly as they did for me. That you follow the same path I did. I know you’re frightened about the things that await you, but you just have to trust me. Everything will be all right.”

  “So what am I supposed to do now?”

  “Tim is going to ask you to go and pretend to accept a job at Continuum,” future Geoff said. “But all the while, he’ll want you to actually be an inside man for Time Tours, spying on your new employer and reporting back.”

  “I’m not sure I like this,” Geoff said. “In fact, this is starting to sound exactly like the kind of thing that might get me shot.”

  “It is the exact thing that gets you shot,” future Geoff said. “And the reason you get shot is because you uncover a horrible truth about that company—a truth that needs to be exposed, for the sake of…well, I’m probably saying too much. Needless to say, it’s important you do as Tim tells you.”

  “Can’t you just tell me what it is I find out to save me having to find out for myself?”

  “No, Geoff—if I do that, you won’t go to Continuum and then I won’t be able to tell you what you find out. We’ll create a paradox.”

  Bloody paradoxes, Geoff thought. Always getting in the way of things.

  Geoff looked down at his wa
tch again and exhaled into the receiver.

  Midday.

  Three and a half hours to go.

  “You still there?” future Geoff said. “Damn it—I thought to myself I wouldn’t ask that since I already know you’re still there, but I still did it.”

  That was a silly thing to ask, Geoff thought, given he must have known he was still here. He made a mental note not to ask himself that question.

  “I suppose I’ve got no choice, then. I’ll do it,” Geoff said. “But this conversation hasn’t exactly been the reassuring exchange I was hoping for. Isn’t there any advice you can give me? Anything at all?”

  “Well, I remember myself telling me one thing,” future Geoff said, “so I suppose I can do that.”

  “Yes?”

  “When the time comes…”

  “Yes?”

  “It’s difficult for me to say…”

  “Say what? Come on!”

  There was a sigh at the other end of the phone.

  “When the time comes,” future Geoff said, “don’t save Zoë.”

  And with that, the phone went dead.

  “Well?” Tim said, taking the phone from Geoff and putting it back on his desk. “What did he tell you?”

  Geoff tried to open his mouth to speak, but no sound came out.

  “I’m not sure…”

  “You need to go work for Continuum,” Tim said, not looking Geoff in the eyes. “And when you get a job there—”

  “—you want me to spy on them. Report back. I know.”

  Tim swallowed. “Your cover story is that you’re responding to the letter they gave you. Jennifer Adams herself said their doors were open twenty-four hours a day, so here you are, ready for an interview. Nothing suspicious about that.”

  “Sounds like a plan.”

  “But you can’t go dressed like that,” Tim said. “You need to look like you really want that job, not like you’re there to fix the coffee machine. Don’t you own anything smart?”

  “Nope. Don’t you remember my interview with Time Tours? I hardly made any effort for that.”

  “That’s right—you turned up in the same clothes you’d slept in, didn’t you?”

  “Tim, I’m not like that anymore. My standards of personal hygiene are now marginally better than they were back then.”

  “That may be true,” Tim replied, “but I still can’t believe you don’t own a single suit. That interview was two years ago. Do you mean to tell me that in two years you haven’t requested we get you any smart clothes?”

  “I haven’t requested any new clothes, smart or otherwise.”

  “Unbelievable. Okay, so you don’t have anything smart to wear. But don’t worry—”

  He stopped talking.

  “What is it?”

  “I was about to say—you can borrow an old suit of mine if you like.”

  Geoff smiled. “At least we now know why I was wearing it. Maybe I should get my hair cut and have a shave as well, just to fall in line exactly with what my future self looked like. What do you think?”

  “I think it would be rude not to. Now, do you want to run through any practice questions for this interview before you leave?”

  “No, I’m okay,” Geoff said. “After all—interviews are my speciality.”

  Seven

  “I’m here for a job interview,” Geoff said to the receptionist. For someone who just sat behind a desk in the lobby of the Continuum office and let people know when a guest had arrived, this girl looked absolutely stunning. Not that receptionists weren’t allowed to look stunning, but we were talking supermodel looks here, as though she’d just stepped off the catwalk after a photo shoot and been hired by Continuum to be the first face you saw when entering the building. Her long blonde hair was tied in a thick braided ponytail behind her back, her skin had not one blemish anywhere to be seen, and her eyes were hazel brown and looked as though they could disarm any man who walked through the door, even if they were there to complain about the superficial nature of Continuum’s receptionist-hiring policy.

  “You must be Geoffrey Stamp,” she said, looking him up and down. There was a slight look of mischief in her eyes, as though he were being a bit naughty for turning up and it was their little secret. But there was something else going on here as well. Was she checking him out?

  “That’s right,” he replied, suddenly conscious of his appearance. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d made so much effort for anything. He’d showered, cut his hair, and even had a proper shave. And once his scraggy hair had been tamed and he’d slipped on one of Tim’s suits, he actually looked quite dapper. Whatever that meant.

  “I’m Jeanette,” she said.

  “How do you know my name?” Geoff asked.

  “Come on,” Jeanette said, leaning forward and twirling a few strands of hair around her fingers. “Everyone’s heard of you. You’re the Time Rep for the twenty-first century, aren’t you?”

  “That’s right,” Geoff said. He’d forgotten that Time Reps were treated a bit like celebrities in the future. Given the decline of Time Tours over the last few months, he was surprised anyone still recognized him or even cared about what he did. He thought by now his celebrity status might be comparable to that of a forgotten star trying to revitalize their showbiz career by going on a reality TV show, but he guessed he was mistaken. Apparently people still knew who he was.

  “Ms. Adams will be so pleased you decided to come,” she said. “Of all the Time Reps she’s contacted, I’m told you’re the one she’s wanted to meet the most.”

  “I am?”

  The receptionist picked up a phone and began to dial a number.

  “Please, have a seat,” she smiled, resting the phone against her shoulder and pointing across the room to a row of black leather chairs. “We’ll be ready for you in a moment.”

  He looked down at his watch.

  Two fifty.

  Were there really only forty minutes to go before he got shot? He could barely believe it. Everyone here had been quite friendly so far, so he’d have to do something pretty bad to take such an amicable environment and let it deteriorate to the point where someone would try to kill him so quickly. Then again, he was pretty good at ruining the mood in certain situations at the drop of a hat, like that time he literally dropped Zoë’s new hat under a bus by mistake.

  Geoff made his way across the busy lobby toward the seating area, weaving his way through a relentless flow of men and women walking in all directions. The Continuum building really was a hive of activity. There were people standing around in groups chatting excitedly, others dashing into different elevators at the far end of the hall with bundles of paperwork in their hands, and over near the entrance, a number of companies had set up stands advertising things you could do on your holidays. Geoff stopped to look at these for a moment. One company let you take canoe equipment back to go whitewater rafting in the prehistoric jungle. Another one was offering advanced weaponry for people to go back and start wars for fun. And one particularly sadistic stand was showing off a range of flying cars that had been modified with weaponry, which you could take back in time and use to cause whatever havoc you pleased.

  Just the sort of thing to do with the kids during the school holidays.

  Geoff eased himself into one of the few remaining seats. This was not to say that there weren’t many remaining seats because someone was taking them all away; they were just mostly occupied. As he sat down, he felt his stomach rumble—with all the excitement today, he’d forgotten to have any lunch.

  To take his mind off of his hunger, Geoff took a moment to examine Continuum’s lobby in a bit more detail. You could really tell the company must have been doing quite well at the moment, because the whole place screamed of money, and screamed even louder of money being spent. The floor was made from solid marble, thick beams of sunlight shone down on everyone through tall, stained-glass windows, and right in the middle of the room stood a huge golden C at least ten mete
rs high, mounted on a square pedestal. This was the logo of Continuum, and although it wasn’t obvious at first, the logo was actually rotating around slowly, the golden surface reflecting on a different section of the room’s perimeter as time passed.

  Next, Geoff turned his attention to the other people seated in the waiting area. There were about ten or twelve men and women here. Some were dressed in suits, others looked more casual. Geoff was pretty sure he recognized half of them, and figured they were probably other Time Reps, no doubt hoping to be hired by Continuum. A few looked back as though they recognized him, too.

  “Mr. Stamp?” came a voice to his right.

  Geoff looked around. A smartly dressed woman was standing next to him, smiling.

  “Yes?” Geoff said, getting to his feet.

  “Allow me to introduce myself,” the woman said, extending a hand for him to shake. “I’m Jennifer Adams.”

  “Pleased to meet you, Ms. Adams.” Geoff shook her hand. She had long, thin fingers and a firm grip, but not so firm as to imply any kind of dominance. Strong, but not too strong, like a good cup of tea. “Oh, call me Jennifer,” she said.

  “Right…Jennifer,” Geoff said. He stood a little awkwardly, as though he had a stone in his shoe.

  So this was the boss of Continuum. Jennifer Adams looked to be in her mid-to-late forties, though at first glance you might have been forgiven for thinking she was a few years younger. It was only when she smiled that telltale wrinkles emerged around her eyes and mouth. Standing a little shorter than Geoff, she seemed to keep herself in good shape, with a thin frame and narrow shoulders. She wore her long brown hair down past her shoulders with a neat part combed into the right-hand side, kept her makeup to a minimum, and had a steely gaze to her eyes that suggested a no-nonsense attitude. Wearing a dark gray trouser suit with a pale green blouse, she looked like your regular sort of businesswoman.

  “So you finally decided to see what we’re all about?” she said, leading him across the lobby toward an elevator that was being held open by a security guard. As they walked, a few passersby looked around, as if seeing the head of the company walking through the lobby was quite a novelty.