by Peter Ward
“Mr. Stamp?” the man with the thin moustache said, motioning him to accept Jennifer’s handshake.
“Sorry,” Geoff said, returning the gesture.
Her handshake was completely different this time from before—it was somehow firm yet gentle at the same time, and she brought her other hand up to clasp his hand from the other side.
“Very good,” Jennifer said, turning to leave the room. “We’ll keep an eye on the state of the space-time continuum as things progress between yourself and Zoë, but in the meantime, I wish you all the very best.”
She walked over to the door and opened it, but before she left, Geoff wanted to say something.
“Ms. Adams?” he said, standing up from his chair.
“Yes, Mr. Stamp?” Jennifer said, looking around.
“Thank you.”
Jennifer gave him a single nod and left the room, closing the door behind her with a click.
“What happens now?” Geoff said, turning to the man with the thin moustache.
“Now you can go back and ask your friend out,” the man said, getting up from his chair and turning to leave.
Geoff suddenly felt nervous at the prospect of asking Zoë out on a date again, although he took some comfort in knowing that there was no way it could be worse than the last time he’d taken her out. This was, of course, assuming that she would agree to go on a date with him at all. Without the power of Continuum, Geoff couldn’t tell her the truth about himself, and he had no way of changing things if this all went wrong. But then again, that was what made life exciting.
And at least she’d probably get through this date without dying.
Epilogue
“So, are you ready for this?” Tim said, straightening Geoff’s tie for him.
“I think so,” Geoff replied, looking himself up and down in his bedroom mirror. “How do I look?”
As well as granting him permission to go on a date with Zoë, Time Tours had also been kind enough to give him some money to purchase a smart suit—the first piece of clothing he’d ever owned that would actually allow him to get into a proper restaurant, which was where he had invited Zoë for dinner later that evening.
“You look great,” Tim said. “Really dapper.”
“What does dapper mean?”
“Smart. Stylish. You know—dapper.”
Through a series of subtle questions over the last few days (and one not-so-subtle question where he’d just blurted out “What the hell happened to Continuum?”), Geoff had determined that, like everyone else, Tim had no memory of what had transpired over the last twenty-four hours. He didn’t remember trying to stop the spread of Continuum; he didn’t remember shooting Geoff in the back; he didn’t remember anything.
Geoff found this extremely annoying, because he really wanted to talk to someone about all this. Why was he the only one who remembered what happened?
He’d also done a bit of investigation about William. He was still a Time Rep in seventeenth-century London, but through a future change request he was allowed to make, William was finally able to own a place of his own and start a family. He would eventually die in his early eighties, succeeded by many loving children. Children that were his of course, not just some random kids.
“So where are you taking Zoë tonight?” Tim asked.
“I thought I’d take her down the local pizza restaurant,” Geoff said. “According to a leaflet that came through the door the other day, they’ve got this new limited-edition meal deal called the Glutton Box. In it you get a large pizza, ten pieces of garlic bread, twenty chicken wings, some potato wedges, and a dip…”
Tim looked at Geoff in silence for a moment.
“I am, of course, joking,” Geoff said.
“Thank God for that,” Tim said.
“You actually get eight pieces of garlic bread.”
• • •
As it happened, Geoff had chosen to eat in a rather posh restaurant, but not one of those fine-dining affairs where the chef considers a decent portion size to be a small prawn balanced on a single pea, housed inside a porcelain teaspoon of tomato consommé. No, he had opted for a nice Italian restaurant on London’s South Bank, overlooking the river Thames.
“This is nice,” Zoë said, taking a sip of her wine. She looked great this evening, wearing a light summer dress and a silver shawl around her neck. She’d also chosen to wear her hair down in a style he’d never seen before, with a thin silver clip holding it in place.
Looking at her now was simply heaven. In fact, if he looked too long, he thought he might just forget the events of the past twenty-four hours, just like everyone else had.
Zoë really had that much of an effect on him.
She made all of his worries drift away.
Then again, it could have been the wine, which usually made him forgetful as well.
The waiter had kindly given them the best table in the house, right in the middle of the balcony overlooking the river. It was a beautiful evening, the clear sky full of stars and glowing with a full moon.
“You like it?” Geoff said, looking down at the menu. He wanted to eat pretty much everything on it, but didn’t think that would be particularly romantic.
“I love it,” Zoë replied. “Who would have thought I’d ever get to eat in a place like this?”
Geoff frowned. “What do you mean?” he said. “Why do you think you wouldn’t ever get to eat here?”
“I don’t know,” Zoë said. “It’s just not what I’m used to, that’s all. I feel like we’re impostors, and that any moment from now, someone is going to come up to us and tell us we’re not allowed to be here.”
Geoff smiled. “Nobody is going tell us anything of the sort,” he said. “Nobody is going to tell us what we’re supposed to do, or where we’re supposed to be, or how we’re supposed to act. From now on, we do what we want to do.”
Zoë smiled. “So, what have you been up to since I last saw you?” she asked. “Anything interesting?”
Geoff looked at Zoë. So much had happened over the last twenty-four hours, and he was dying to tell her everything he had just been through to be here with her.
But then the voice of Jennifer Adams echoed in his mind. Under no circumstances could he tell Zoë he was a Time Rep, or that he had saved the entire human race from an alien invasion two years ago. Both of those things were certainly impressive, but they had to remain a secret.
“Zoë,” he said. “Can I tell you something?”
“Sure,” Zoë said, leaning forward. “What is it?”
“I’m a Time Rep.”
Acknowledgments
Thanks to:
Mark Selby, Geoff Tachauer, Cammil Taank, and Adam Malinowski
Dan Geneen and Briony Singh
Lucy Ward and Erik Brown
More from Peter Ward
PETER WARD was born in London in 1980. He was educated at William Torbitt Primary School, Ilford Country High School, and the University of Southampton, though not at the same time, because that would be ridiculous. His skills include making a fairly decent lamb korma from scratch, drawing X-Wings, and riding his bike with no hands. Oh, and writing.
He lives in London with his wife Lucy, a very small cat, and a spider that won’t leave the kitchen that he has decided to call Dennis.
Time Rep: Continuum is his third novel, unless time travel is invented within his lifetime and he decides to go back and release some books other than Time Rep and Note to Self before this one.
Note to Self is available now!
In a world where technology controls everything, sometimes your own handwriting is the only thing you can trust.
Richard Henley is an ordinary man leading an ordinary life, but when he finds strange notes in his own handwriting warning that someone is trying to kill him, he is sent on a journey to places he never knew existed. With an ominous and all-powerful organisation on his trail, his only hope is to trust unexpected allies, take control of his life, and uncover th
e truth about what happened to the girl he loved twenty years ago. A darkly humorous commentary on our app-obsessed culture, if Richard can stay alive, his world will never be the same again.
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