Continuum: Time Rep

by Peter Ward

  “I’ve just found our silver bullet,” Geoff said. “I think I’ve worked out a way to destroy Continuum.”

  Sixteen

  “So where are we going?” Tim said, removing a large number of fliers that had been placed on the car windshield before getting in. He handed the fliers to Geoff and started the ignition.

  “What’s that place your tourists use to travel back in time?” Geoff said, looking down at the different pieces of paper Tim had handed him. One was actually advertising a flier-removal service.

  “You mean the timeport?”

  “Yeah, that thing. We need to go there.”

  “If you say so,” Tim said, starting the car’s ascent into the sky. “But something is bothering me.”

  “Really?” Geoff said. “Is it by any chance the fact that we’ve uncovered a plot to cocoon the human race away in their own personal fantasy worlds for the rest of eternity, and we’re the only ones who can stop it from happening?”

  “I meant besides that,” Tim said, weaving the car in between two skyscrapers and joining a line of traffic flowing north. “Although I’ll admit that’s been bothering me too.”

  “What is it, then?” Geoff said. “Did you leave the oven on?”

  “No, it’s not that either,” Tim said, giving Geoff a tired look. “It’s just—don’t you think it’s funny how Jennifer chose to defuse that situation? Once I’d lowered my weapon, her men could have easily overpowered us, but instead she just let us go.”

  “So what?”

  “Don’t you think that’s weird behavior?”

  “I guess,” Geoff said, looking at the cars flying in perfect formation either side of them. Looking down through the glass window at his feet, he guessed they must have been at least a couple of hundred feet up in the air. Flying in a car across London was quite similar to driving along a road on the ground, only you never encountered any roadwork, cyclists, or potholes. Running out of petrol presented a bit more of a problem, though, as it wasn’t just a case of pulling over—it was more like crashing over.

  “So what’s this brilliant plan of yours?” Tim said, moving into a perpendicular stream of traffic flowing west. In front of them, the sun was beginning to set, casting a beautiful red glow across London.

  “First of all, Jennifer is right about Continuum being too big for us to destroy,” Geoff said. “It’s impossible.”

  “Sounds encouraging so far,” Tim said, nodding. “Carry on.”

  “But she’s wrong about me not knowing where to start. Continuum does have a weak spot.”

  “It does?” Tim said. “Where is it?”

  “Not where,” Geoff said, “but when.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “If we want to destroy Continuum, we need to prevent Jennifer Adams from ever inventing it in the first place. In short, the place to start is the start—the day she resigned from Time Tours.”

  “Hold on a minute,” Tim said. “If you go back and stop her from leaving Time Tours to set up Continuum, won’t that create a paradox? If she never invents Continuum, you won’t have a reason to go back and stop her from inventing it.”

  “Yes, I will probably cause a paradox,” Geoff said. “A big, hairy paradox with bad breath, fangs, and sharp claws, ready to rip the crap out of everything it touches. But you know what? I don’t care. I don’t care what people tell me I can and can’t do anymore—and besides, defeating the Varsarians two years ago created a massive paradox as well, and that turned out all right.”

  “I guess.”

  “And I’m pretty certain we’ve already notched up one or two paradoxes today, what with everything we’ve been through, right?”

  “Probably,” Tim admitted.

  “So one more isn’t going to hurt now, is it?”

  “Okay,” Tim said. “But what do you intend to do? You can’t just go back in time and say to her: ‘Hi there, Ms. Adams, I know you’re thinking about leaving to set up your own company, but have you ever considered pursuing a career in pottery?’”

  “No,” Geoff said. “That wouldn’t work.”

  “So what are you going to do, then?”

  “I’m not sure yet. But I was thinking about what you said about how she persuaded this other mystery scientist to leave with her as well. Didn’t you say that person was instrumental in helping her invent Continuum’s technology?”

  “From what I know,” Tim said, “by the time Jennifer resigned, she had a working prototype of the Sat-Nav, however she was struggling to create the serum needed to link the device to a person. But then she met this scientist who was able to solve that problem for her, and together they left to set up Continuum.”

  “Who told you this exactly?”

  “They’re just rumors. Rumors that have been floating around Time Tours for years. Nobody knows where they came from.”

  “Well, that’s it then,” Geoff said. “If I can go back and stop Jennifer from meeting that scientist, I can stop her from ever setting up Continuum, right? Maybe I could even find a way to destroy that prototype Sat-Nav…”

  “I don’t know about this,” Tim said. “If I was the space-time continuum, I’d be pretty miffed about this plan. If you put a stop to the very technology that made you to want to go back, what will happen to you?”

  “This isn’t about me,” Geoff said. “It’s about stopping Continuum, and this is the only way.”

  Tim banked the car around into another lane of flying traffic and shook his head.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “I still think that encounter we had just now ended a little too conveniently. What if…”

  Tim paused for a minute.

  “What is it?” Geoff said.

  “I think she knows you were going to come up with this plan. I think she wants you to go back in time to try and stop her.”

  “What?”

  “Think about it. Jennifer said herself that when she was at Time Tours, she watched a simulation of the future, which showed the world becoming addicted to Continuum. Who’s to say she didn’t watch more than that? Who’s to say she didn’t watch a simulation of this very conversation we’re having back then? For all we know, she could have complete knowledge of everything we decide to do, and as much as you think you’re following your own path, you may very well be acting exactly as she wants you to.”

  “I guess that’s possible,” Geoff said, “but why would she want me to go back? It’s not like I’m going to hand over any technology or do anything that would help her create Continuum, is it?”

  “I guess not,” Tim said. “But something still doesn’t feel right.”

  “I tell you what,” Geoff said. “Before I go back in time, why don’t we use the supercomputer to make sure this is the right thing to do? That way, we can be sure we’re not playing into her hands.”

  “Good idea,” Tim nodded.

  • • •

  “Isn’t it going to be a bit busy?” Geoff said, looking at his watch as they came in to land at the timeport. “It’s only five o’clock in the afternoon, and we’ll need to commandeer the paradox scanning facility for me to make this trip, you know.”

  “It will be fine,” Tim said.

  They easily found a parking space on the roof of the facility, and as Geoff got out of the car, he could see why Tim wasn’t concerned about how busy it would be. There were hardly any other parked cars to be seen, and when he walked inside the departure lounge, the place was mostly deserted.

  “What the hell happened?” Geoff said, looking around at the handful of people sitting on benches, waiting for their destination to flash up on the departures board. “The last time I was here, this place was ridiculously busy! You couldn’t move for men dressed as cowboys going back to the Wild West, or women in Victorian gowns, going back to enjoy a nineteenth-century tea party, or men in suits of armor, or people in togas, or—”

  “I told you times were tough, didn’t I?” Tim said.

  Geoff looked up at
the departures board. Only a couple of time destinations were listed, with all the rest accompanied by the word CANCELLED.

  “This is the effect Continuum has had on business,” Tim said, leading Geoff across the lounge. “Hardly anyone uses us anymore.”

  Tim flashed some identification at the extremely bored-looking security guards to skip the various procedures normally required before entering the paradox scanning facility, and before Geoff knew it, he was back in the big, dome-shaped chamber looking up at the vertical shaft of light beaming down on a pedestal in the middle of the room. Before traveling back in time, every tourist had to stand in the light, which allowed the supercomputer to scan them.

  “Okay,” Tim said, sitting down at a terminal on the far side of the room. “What date do you want to go back to?”

  “I need to go back to the day she resigned from Time Tours and convinced this other scientist to help her set up Continuum,” Geoff said. “If I can prevent that from happening, we’ll be in business. And she’ll be out of business.”

  Geoff smiled wryly at Tim for a second, waiting for some sort of reciprocation.

  Tim looked at Geoff as though he’d spotted a bit of dirt on his face but didn’t want to say anything out of embarrassment.

  Geoff blinked.

  “Did you see what I did there?”

  “Yes, I did,” Tim said. “You have a singular wit.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Well, if you want to interfere with Jennifer leaving Time Tours, the best day to do it would be the night it happened.”

  “Sounds good,” Geoff said. “How long ago was that exactly?”

  “About seventeen years,” Tim said.

  “I thought you said Eric hired Jennifer to build the computer twenty years ago?” Geoff said.

  “That’s right, smartypants,” Tim said, “But she didn’t build it instantaneously, did she? This place took three years to complete, hence why I’m sending you back seventeen years. Understand?”

  Geoff nodded.

  “If the rumors are true, she resigned in the early hours of the morning right outside her office, just as everyone was getting back from the ceremony where Eric received his second Nobel Prize. If I send you back a couple of hours before that happens, say around midnight, you should have a good chance of interfering with her meeting that scientist, and perhaps destroying the prototype Sat-Nav.”

  “Sounds good to me,” Geoff said.

  Tim pressed a few more buttons on the computer terminal. “We’re ready. All you need to do is step into the beam.”

  “What?” Geoff said. “I can’t do that if I’m deliberately going back to change something, can I? It will turn red!”

  “You have to step into the beam, otherwise the computer won’t let you travel.”

  “I don’t believe this,” Geoff said, stepping up onto the pedestal and closing his eyes. He hadn’t stepped into this light for about two years, and had forgotten how cool the light was compared to the rest of the room. “Can’t you just hack the computer and let me through?”

  Suddenly Geoff felt very hot again.

  “No need,” Tim said. “The computer says you’re okay to travel.”

  Geoff opened his eyes. Sure enough, he was enveloped in a green light.

  “But that doesn’t make any sense,” Geoff said. “If the light is green, that means the computer predicts I’m not going to change anything by going back, right?”

  “Apparently,” Tim said, “But like you said—this thing has been wrong before, right?”

  “I suppose so,” Geoff replied. “Shall we look at a simulation of what’s going to happen if I go back?”

  “Working on it right now,” Tim said, tapping away at the terminal.

  After a few seconds, a large screen materialized in midair in front of them. It showed Geoff walking straight to Jennifer’s office and meeting her face to face.

  “How come I know exactly where Jennifer’s office is?” Geoff said.

  “Probably because you just watched yourself walk there on this screen,” Tim replied.

  “That’s a bit spooky.”

  They continued to watch the simulation.

  The Jennifer on the screen looked much younger, perhaps in her early twenties. She had softer skin, wore her hair in a bob, and her eyes were hidden behind a pair of thick, black-rimmed glasses.

  Inside the office, the atmosphere seemed quite polite. The Geoff onscreen made up some reason for being there, and then sat in a chair, talking to Jennifer as she sat behind her desk. She even made him a cup of tea. After a long conversation, she took what looked to be a completed Sat-Nav out of her desk drawer and gave it to Geoff. The moment Geoff had it in his hands, he smashed it on the floor, and as he did, the screen went blank.

  “So it would appear you go back, convince her to show you the Sat-Nav, then destroy it, thereby preventing Continuum from ever existing. The moment the screen turned to static must be the moment you caused a paradox,” Tim said. “I couldn’t see any sign of that scientist she was supposed to meet though…”

  “That doesn’t matter,” Geoff said, stepping down from the pedestal. “If destroying the Sat-Nav is all it takes to stop Continuum, that’s all that matters. Now, where can I find a pair of those earphones I need to travel back in time?”

  “There should be some spare ones in the departure chamber,” Tim said. “Listen—I know the simulation shows you going back alone, but don’t you think I should come back with you?”

  “No,” Geoff said. “I’ve got a different job for you.”

  Seventeen

  Geoff materialized in the middle of the paradox scanning facility, his body appearing out of nowhere in the dark chamber as though he’d just been added into a film scene by a special effects company. He removed his earphones, stuffed them in his trouser pocket, and looked around. The place was empty.

  He had to say, it felt good to be traveling through time the old-fashioned way again rather than having to bother with all these serums and Sat-Navs, although he couldn’t believe he was really starting to describe the time traveling earphones as being old-fashioned. For someone from the twenty-first century, these earphones should have been remarkable—one of the most amazing scientific discoveries ever known. To an old hand like him, though, they already seemed a bit dated. He guessed that was the problem with being human—no matter how remarkable something seems one minute, the next minute it’s completely taken for granted. Two years ago, he’d thought that a pair of earphones that allowed him to time travel was incredible. Today, he was asking himself why they weren’t time-traveling socks instead, which would have been far more comfortable.

  Looking around, Geoff noticed a number of differences between the paradox scanning facility he had just left and the one he had arrived in seventeen years earlier. For a start, it was clear this place had only just opened—celebratory bunting hung down from the ceiling, the floor was littered with colorful tickertape, and various posters were hanging from the walls advertising Time Tours as “a brand new holiday experience!” Another thing Geoff noticed was that despite the facility having just opened, there were still a lot of construction materials lying around everywhere—tall ladders were leaning against walls, various pieces of equipment were draped with dirty sheets, and several areas were cordoned off with bright yellow tape that said WET PAINT. In fact, he could still smell the unmistakably nose-stinging scent, which hung in the air like a thick chemical fog.

  In the center of the paradox scanning facility stood the familiar beam of light, shining down on the elevated pedestal, ready to scan whoever stepped into it. It being the middle of the night though, the beam was currently much dimmer than Geoff had seen it before. Maybe it was in standby mode or something. To his left, he saw a long corridor leading to the exit. If he remembered correctly from what he’d seen in the simulation moments earlier, this was the way he had walked when he was looking for Jennifer’s office. So he started walking.

  At this hour, the
place was so quiet it made Geoff want to make stupid noises to see what the echo was like. He managed to resist, although his footsteps were quite loud, the noise bouncing off every surface like an enthusiastic dog being let off of its leash for the first time in days. Each footstep reverberated around so much that the sound came not just from his feet but from the left, the right, up above, and down below. It was like sitting in the cinema to watch one of those annoying films where the sound starts coming from all around you. Because having a frog going ribbit behind you during that swamp scene is really what immersive cinema is all about, right?

  “Hello?” Geoff called out as he began to walk down the corridor. “Is anybody there?”

  No answer.

  “Hello?” Geoff repeated. “Can anyone hear me?”

  Once again, there was no answer.

  He supposed not too many people would be hanging around here in the middle of the night, so he thought it was understandable for nobody to reply.

  Then he heard a very small squeak and got really scared, until he realized it was actually his nose whistling as he breathed. He tweaked his nose to get rid of it and kept walking.

  Soon enough, Geoff reached the end of the corridor. In front of him was the security check area, with a set of frosted-glass doors leading to the Quarantine Chamber not far behind. To his left he noticed a door that said OFFICES above it. There wasn’t really much else to say about this door. It was a pale lime green, it had a small chrome handle, and generally it looked a lot less jazzy than all of its other doormates. However, what made this door a lot more interesting than all the others was the fact that a crack of light was shining through the gap at the bottom.

  Geoff walked over to the door, grabbed the handle, and opened it, just like he had done in the simulation.

  Inside was another long corridor, albeit slightly narrower than the one he had just come from. The corridor was lit up by several long strips of fluorescent light, and the walls were drab and boring, a bit like the textures used in Aliens: Colonial Marines.