Continuum: Time Rep

by Peter Ward

  His past self kept on running once he had made it to the other side of the road, but it was clear by now that the drug was seriously impairing his vision. In fact, the more he ran, the more he looked extraordinarily unsure as to why he was even running in the first place.

  A few meters back, Jennifer Adams and most of her men were in pursuit, although they had to leave William behind, as he was still recovering from being hit by Tim, supporting his body against the wall with one arm as he struggled to get to his feet. Tim was lying next to him, looking a little bit dazed—if he didn’t move soon, William would have him.

  But that wasn’t going to happen.

  Geoff realized this was his chance for some payback. He ran over to William, clenched his hand into a tight fist, and smacked him in the face as hard as he could.

  William collapsed on the ground in front of Geoff, unconscious.

  The punch hurt like hell, but Geoff was so worked up after landing such a killer blow, he didn’t even notice it.

  “Sorry,” Geoff said, standing over William’s limp body as he shook the pain out of his hand. “I know you were forced into it, but you deserved that.”

  “Well done, Geoff!” Tim said, getting to his feet. “You really knocked him out cold!”

  “Thanks,” Geoff said. “I’m not really a man of violence, but that felt really, really good.”

  Tim looked down at William, then at the gun he was holding.

  “What is it?” Geoff said.

  Tim picked up the gun and looked at it. “I think we’ve got a problem,” he said.

  “Problem?” Geoff said. “What problem?”

  “This is the thing that fires those temporal bullets, right?”

  “That’s right,” Geoff said. “I think you can program it so the bullets send the target back to any point in time you like. Why?”

  “You remember we were wondering why Continuum sent you back to yesterday? Why they didn’t send you to a more remote time period where you couldn’t raise the alarm? Well, it turns out that’s exactly what they were trying to do.”

  “What’s that now?” Geoff said.

  “Look at this.”

  Tim held the gun on its side so Geoff could read the display. To his horror, the screen said AD 1,000,0000.

  “So what does this mean?” Geoff said. “You think one of their bullets malfunctioned or something?”

  “No,” Tim said, looking around at where Geoff’s past self had gotten to.

  Despite not having any sense of direction, Geoff’s past self was still running as fast as he could away from everyone, toward Tower Bridge. He’d done remarkably well, considering his condition.

  Tim began fiddling with some buttons on the side of the gun. It turned out the controls were quite obvious, and he was able to change the target date to yesterday with ease.

  “Shit,” Tim said, grabbing Geoff by the shoulder. “We’ve been looking at this all wrong! Continuum wasn’t who shot you today—it was us!” He started running toward Tower Bridge as well.

  “What?” Geoff said, following closely behind.

  “It’s the only explanation!” Tim said, looking back. “Don’t you see? Sending you back by one day was the only way to warn us about what was going to happen! The person who shot you wasn’t trying to kill you—they were trying to save you!”

  “Well, shooting me in the back is a funny way of saving me!” Geoff said. “Can’t we think of a less painful way of dealing with all this, like perhaps shooting all the other men instead? That’s how this sort of thing normally works, right?”

  “There’s too many of them!” Tim said, running faster. “Trust me—this is the only way!”

  By now, Geoff’s past self had covered quite an amazing distance considering he might as well have been running with a blindfold on. He’d made it right to the end of the street and turned right, running along the road that led up onto Tower Bridge. By this point, though, the drug was clearly hindering Geoff’s ability to put one foot in front of the other in rapid succession, and he began to slow down. Jennifer and her men were only a few paces behind, but Tim and Geoff were catching up fast.

  After a few more seconds of running, Geoff’s past self looked as though this whole running malarkey had suddenly become far too complicated an activity for his brain to deal with anymore, and he came to an abrupt halt in the middle of the bridge, standing near the railings and leaning over to catch his breath. Then he just stood there aimlessly, swaying like a drunkard, watching as everyone ran toward him, and then he turned away to look down at the river.

  “Don’t shoot him!” Jennifer shouted at her men. “Holster your weapons! Holster your weapons!”

  The men did as they were told, slotting their guns into a compartment in their armor.

  “Okay,” Jennifer said. “Now, let’s take him in.”

  However, just as the men from Continuum began to move in to grab Geoff, Tim pushed past Jennifer, knocking her to the pavement. He barged his way through her men, pointed William’s gun directly at Geoff, and fired a single, well-aimed shot.

  At that moment the air filled with a sudden noise of static. The bullet struck Geoff’s past self in the back, and he vanished into thin air instantaneously. The effect looked exactly the same as when William had shot Zoë, with Geoff’s body evaporating into nothing as though it had just disappeared into the ether.

  “Yes!” Tim shouted, punching the air as Geoff caught up with him. “I got him! I got him!” He ran over to Jennifer, pulled her to her feet, and pressed the gun to the side of her head. On the road next to them, cars screeched to a halt and people jumped out of their vehicles, running to the safety of somewhere where there weren’t lots of people with guns.

  “Don’t move,” Tim said to his new hostage.

  “I won’t,” Jennifer said.

  “Good,” Tim said.

  “But tell me,” she continued, making a quick gesture to her men to take out their weapons, “what are you going to do now?”

  Fifteen

  Geoff and Tim watched as Jennifer’s men took out their guns and showed them the end that the bullets usually came out of.

  After putting in all that effort to save his past self from being sent to an inconvenient time period, all that had happened was that they’d now found themselves in the exact same predicament.

  Typical.

  “What are we going to do now?” Geoff asked.

  “I’m not entirely sure,” Tim replied, holding Jennifer close to him, the barrel of his gun pressing against her temple. “I didn’t think this far ahead, to be honest.”

  “Oh,” Geoff said. “Well that’s a bit annoying.”

  “I cannot believe you two morons!” Jennifer shouted, apparently feeling more frustrated with her present situation than concerned about the fact that she had a gun held to her head. “What exactly were you hoping to achieve by coming here?!”

  “We’re here to stop Continuum,” Geoff said, walking in front of Jennifer, his hands resting on his hips like a dad giving his son a lecture about not walking on the roof of the garage. As he moved, the men around him moved their guns to follow, but none of them looked like they were ready to shoot. He hoped they wouldn’t try anything while their boss was in danger, unless of course they wanted to try surrendering, which would have been acceptable.

  Something told him that wasn’t going to happen, though.

  “We cannot allow the world to get addicted to Continuum,” Geoff said. “The future of the human race depends on us shutting you down!”

  “Oh dear,” Jennifer sighed, turning her head as much as she could within Tim’s grip to look at them both. “Look, I’m not entirely sure how many times I need to explain this to you, but there is nothing you can do to stop Continuum, okay? Nothing. The success of Continuum has already been determined. The supercomputer at Time Tours already predicted its future dominance years ago, and you’ve seen the future with your own eyes. It is the destiny of the human race. It is meant to be.
”

  “I don’t believe you,” Geoff said. “There has to be a way to stop this from happening.”

  “No, there isn’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because if you did, you would create a paradox.”

  “Not those stupid things again,” Geoff said. “Why do they always turn up when you least want them?”

  “How will stopping Continuum create a paradox exactly?” Tim said, loosening his grip on Jennifer a little.

  “Think about it,” Jennifer replied. “The only reason you think you need to stop Continuum is because when Geoff went forward in time, he saw a world where everyone had disappeared into the Continuum experience. However, if you do succeed in shutting Continuum down, that future will never transpire, meaning you will never have seen the future you are trying to prevent, correct? Then you wouldn’t have any reason to try and stop Continuum, so you won’t stop it, and it will exist again. That, my friends, is a paradox.”

  Tim looked like he was about to open his mouth to say something, but decided against it.

  “Don’t you see?” Jennifer added, “Destroying Continuum will simply create an endless loop of cause and effect, which could endanger the very fabric of the universe! What you want to do may actually be worse for the future of mankind than the very thing you are trying to prevent!”

  Geoff thought about what Jennifer had said for a moment.

  “That’s not necessarily true,” he said. “When I was in Continuum, the future I saw was based on a timeline where I had gone into Continuum myself, right? If that’s the case, I could still have seen a future where the world was deserted, because the computer was taking into account the fact that I was using Continuum myself to travel back and forth through time, rather than stopping that future from transpiring. So in theory, it should still be possible for me to stop Continuum in the real world, without it affecting what I saw inside it. Isn’t that right?”

  This time it was Jennifer who thought about what Geoff had said for a moment.

  Tim was nodding to himself. “That was very good,” he said. “You may actually be right.”

  “Yes, I admire your logic,” Jennifer admitted, “But that still doesn’t change what the supercomputer predicted when I was at Time Tours. In the future, this planet is deserted because everyone disappears into Continuum. I’ve seen it with my own eyes.”

  “But then again, you could be lying about that,” Tim said.

  “I’m not lying!” Jennifer cried. “Don’t you understand? All this is supposed to happen! You cannot change what is already predetermined!”

  Geoff clenched his fists.

  His body began to tremble.

  This was a similar sensation to the time he’d found out that LucasArts had been closed down.

  In short, he was really, really angry.

  “I can change whatever I like!” Geoff said. “I’m sick of people telling me what I can and can’t do, how I’m allowed to behave and how I’m not. You tell everyone that Continuum is the only way people can change the world around them, that it’s the only way they can fulfill their dreams. But you know what? I don’t need your stupid Continuum to change the world. I don’t need it to make my dreams come true. From now on, I’m going to behave however I like; I’m going to try and do things my way, no matter who says I can’t, and no computer is going to tell me otherwise!”

  He felt triumphant, like he’d just given a rousing speech to some troops on the eve of a big battle. Unfortunately, the only troops listening in this instance were the ones on the other side, and they all kind of wanted him dead, if they were being honest.

  He was wasted on his audience.

  “Okay, Geoff,” Jennifer said, “okay.” She looked at her men and smiled. “Lower your weapons,” she ordered.

  “Ms. Adams?” one of the men said, not taking his sights off Geoff.

  “You heard me,” Jennifer said. “Lower your weapons.”

  Reluctantly, the men did as they were told.

  “Now, throw them in the river.”

  “Really, Ms. Adams,” another man protested, “do you really think it’s wise to—”

  “Don’t argue with me!” she said. “Do it! Throw them in the river now!”

  Once again, the men did as they were told, throwing their weapons over the side.

  “There.” Jennifer looked at Tim. “I’ve discarded my weapons. Do you think you could do me the courtesy of lowering yours?”

  “Wait a minute,” Geoff said. “Why are you doing this?”

  “I’m so confident about Continuum’s place in the future, I’m going to let you go,” she said.

  “What?” Tim said. “You really expect us to believe that?”

  “I do,” Jennifer replied. “Please, put your gun away.”

  Tim looked at Geoff, who shrugged his shoulders back in an “I have no idea what the hell is going on but maybe we should take the chance?” sort of way.

  After a few seconds, Tim lowered his gun from Jennifer’s head and let go of her.

  “You’re really just going to let us go?” Geoff said.

  “That’s right,” Jennifer said, straightening the collar of her suit jacket and walking back over to her men.

  “But why?” Geoff said. “You must know that the first thing we’re going to do once we get out of here is try and come up with a way of stopping Continuum.”

  “Geoff,” Jennifer said, taking a few steps back toward him. “Like I said before—you cannot stop Continuum. It is an inevitable part of our future. It is unavoidable. Do you understand what those words mean?”

  “I understand,” Geoff said. “But I still refuse to believe I’m powerless to change things.”

  “Okay,” Jennifer said, running her fingers through her hair, “I’m going to humor you for a moment. Let’s say that I’m wrong. Let’s say that the future of Continuum isn’t set in stone, and that there is still a way to prevent it from taking over the world without causing a universe-ending paradox.”

  “Okay,” Geoff said. “I like this game.”

  “How would you destroy it?”

  “What?” Geoff said.

  “I said: how would you destroy it? Where would you start? Continuum isn’t like that Varsarian invasion you dealt with, Geoff—there isn’t a silver bullet you can fire that just takes care of everything. Unlike that single flying saucer you destroyed that turned the tide of an entire battle, Continuum is very different. There is no central computer to break, or an important building to blow up, or a person to kill that would wipe Continuum out forever—Continuum is everywhere.”

  “Oh,” Tim said. “Oh dear.”

  “Your eloquent friend understands what I’m talking about,” Jennifer said. “If you destroyed our headquarters, Continuum would live on. If you killed me on the spot, Continuum would live on. If you sent a broadcast out to the whole world telling everyone how horrible we were, Continuum would live on.”

  “She’s right, Geoff,” Tim said. “I hate to say it, but she’s right.”

  “No,” Geoff said. “There must be a way.”

  “Think of it this way,” Jennifer said. “Let’s say you wanted to try and destroy the Internet. How would you succeed?”

  Geoff thought about this for second.

  “Give me a moment,” he said, holding his finger up.

  “The answer is you wouldn’t succeed. Continuum is like the Internet—it’s bigger than me, it’s bigger than you, and it’s bigger than all the vats of serum or piles of Sat-Navs that it uses. We have millions of people going on holiday every day, and even though they’re only going on temporary vacations at the moment, it is quickly becoming something people can no longer live without, something that is becoming a part of our culture. That’s why you’ll never be able to take it away from the world. Never. You could destroy every factory that made Sat-Navs, wipe out all the labs that produce the serum for us, but it wouldn’t matter—they would be rebuilt. Like it or not, Continuum is here to stay. The
people demand it.”

  Geoff stood still for a moment, considering what Jennifer had just said. He walked to the edge of the bridge, leaned over the railing, and looked down at the river. She did have a pretty good point—Continuum was like the water flowing beneath him—pretty unstoppable. And even if Continuum could be destroyed, where the hell would he start?

  “So I’ll leave you with that little conundrum,” Jennifer said, turning to leave. “But one of these days you’re just going to have to face it—Continuum will eventually offer everyone the chance to disappear into their own personal paradise, and there’s nothing you can do about it.”

  Geoff and Tim watched in silence as Jennifer began to walk back along Tower Bridge the way she had come, followed by her men.

  “Oh, and one other thing,” Jennifer said, looking back. “Did it ever occur to you that you might already be inside Continuum? That everything you know might just be part of someone else’s fantasy? How do you know all of this isn’t my creation, and that I’ve changed the past so that I get to run my own time travel company? How do you know I can’t rewind all of this at any time?”

  Geoff looked over at Tim and felt his heart stop. He hoped for the love of God that wasn’t true.

  “You’re joking, right?” Geoff said.

  “Yes, I’m joking,” Jennifer said, giving him a smug smile. “But I couldn’t resist suggesting it, just to see the look on your faces! Anyway, good luck trying to destroy Continuum! And do let me know if you work out where to start!”

  And with that last taunt out of the way, she left.

  High up in the sky, the sun began to disappear behind a large black rain cloud. For a second, Geoff thought this was strangely apt, like a Charles Dickens narrative device where the weather changes depending on the tone of the story. In this case, though, the weather had absolutely no idea what was going on down below, and soon enough, the sun came back out again, shining even brighter than before.

  It really was a lovely day.

  Then Geoff had a thought.

  It was a thought about what Jennifer had said just before she left: Let me know if you work out where to start.