Drive Time

by Matt Wilkinson

  “I wouldn’t get too condescending, we might be convinced to go elsewhere.”

  “Do you know who you’re speaking with? The people in this room can make or break a start-up like yours. Don’t let your recent success with those fad products go to your head. We’ve actually shaped the world with our work. You’re a one hit wonder outfit.”

  “I understand. We’d better leave. We’ll take our tech and billionaire endorsement with us.”

  Simon morphed into a tall, slim man wearing a black turtleneck and glasses. He addressed the table. “You don’t want what these brilliant young innovators are offering?” he asked “Great, my corporation won’t dismiss them so readily.”

  The room froze. Victor imagined thud sounds from jaws hitting the floor. The man at the head of the table said “Is that... But he’s...” before comprehension hit.

  Simon shifted again. “To err is human, to forgive, divine.” the pope imparted.

  Jaws were actually beginning to drop, no thuds but flies could have definitely been caught. Simon became an amorphous shaped swarm and drifted in a circle around the room before returning to his original position and transforming once more, this time into a duplicate of the man in the seat at the end of the table.

  “You’re hired!” Simon said before morphing back into himself.

  “You know,” Victor said. “I’m sorry, cheques are so nineties. Instant transfer is much more convenient. Please have one of your earth shapers authorise a transferal. I’d like you to use one of those nifty apps that show the balance of your payment drop pound by pound while it rises pound for pound in our account. They’re always so much fun in the movies.”

  “We’ll wait here," Spencer said. She glared towards the woman seated nearest to her at the table. “I said we’ll wait here, my legs are tired, we came a long way.” She glanced at the woman’s chair meaningfully. The woman stood, and Spencer took possession of the seat. “Whew," she said, spun once, then swung her knees left to right playfully. Victor looked at a man on the opposite side of the table, who immediately gave up his seat for Victor. Another stood for Simon, then realised there wasn’t really a Simon and reseated himself.

  “No, no. I do need to work on my sitting posture.” The man stood once more and moved to lean awkwardly against the wall. “I won’t right now, but it’s good to know it’s empty should I need it.”

  Simon remained poised, facing the group of business men and women while everyone stared. This continued for a full minute until the man at the head of the table shrieked. “Why is no one coding that transfer interface!”

  ∆ ∆ ∆

  Four hours later, Spencer and Victor walked through the building’s front doors, laughing all the way. They were now hundreds of millions richer than they were when upon entering and would probably see billions during what they hoped would be a long, fruitful partnership. They wouldn’t have to worry about obtaining enough funds for their future projects, even if they were to receive the plans for the cloning technology that Future Simon had used to bribe them.

  “You know,” Spencer said. “This is probably way too much money for us to spend on what we have coming our way.”

  “You’re right," Victor replied. “We should be able to make a sizable charity donation in the name of that company we stole the selfie drones from. Whatever it was called.”

  “We could donate to a lot of charities.”

  “We could. Will that serve to ease that conscience of yours? We’ll finally be making a big difference in people’s lives, right now, no need to wait for the bigger picture to be complete.”

  “You know, I think it just might.”

  They hadn’t had any new messages from the future since Simon had destroyed their connection to the past. They assumed that this was because their future selves were waiting for their current trip to be over, and their anxiety levels to drop before sending them more work. Future Simon’s current whereabouts and activities were their primary concern right now. They were hoping that he hadn’t had the chance to perform any actions that might interfere with their future just yet. All of their fingers and toes were figuratively crossed.

  “Any problems back home, Simon?” they asked the suitcase.

  “Everything’s fine here.” the voice in their ear replied.

  “By here, do you mean there?”

  “Yes, both are great.”

  Simon and Spencer called for another taxi to return them to the train station. Hopefully, they thought, the train would get them back to Leeds in time for their connecting journey back to Harrogate. Otherwise, they’d have to pay out more for a taxi to HQ. The billionaire mindset still hadn’t quite set in.

  Chapter 26

  Yesterday’s busy schedule of travel and business negotiations called for a good night’s sleep, for Victor and Spencer, at least. Once suitably restored, they arrived back at HQ bright and early to await further instructions. It had been quite some time since their last directive, and they were beginning to feel moderately angsty about the reasoning behind this. If the interruption continued, their restlessness would intensify with speculation on what might have befallen their future selves.

  Their conversation that morning turned to Future Simon, where he might be and how they could locate him. Simon tried to think of the places he might go if he were trying to evade the others. He came to the conclusion that he and his future self were just too different for him to divine such information; Future Simon’s knowledge of both science and the future itself far exceeded his own, and his actions might be the exact opposite of what Simon would suspect. If anything, Simon’s input could be a liability.

  The group had decided not to use the time drive to help in their search, as once Future Simon was found, there was no guarantee that he had been in that exact spot for the entire time that he had been missing. He would not be forthcoming about his real location at this moment in his past, so they might as well just put the work in themselves for once. Frequent lazy reliance on their future selves wouldn’t help sharpen their wits anyhow. If the search took too long, or there were disastrous events caused by Future Simon along the way, that might be the time for the drive to play its part. The nanobot deal provided a safety net if their search failed, it took an option away from Future Simon’s possible plans and gave the team more resources.

  “Maybe your input wouldn’t be totally useless, Simon," Victor said. “If you think of the obvious places he could be and we go the opposite way, it may help find him.”

  “He could have thought of that," Simon said via his workstation speakers. “He knows how we think.”

  “What if he knows that we know he knows and he triple bluffs us and goes straight for the obvious.”

  “Maybe you’re over thinking this, Victor.” Simon sighed. “Although, it would be best to rule out the obvious first.”

  “Yes!” Victor said. “Exactly. WWSD. What would Sherlock do? Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth. Right?”

  “Okay, fair enough. The only obvious place I can think of is right here. What’s the opposite of here?” Simon said.

  “I don’t know. Maybe that wasn’t such a great idea.”

  “I can think of one place you’d be right now that’s the last place you’d look," Spencer said. “Your old flat.”

  “I suppose that is the obvious if it is a triple bluff," Simon said. “Though Gary would probably have a hard time allowing me to rent from him again, which does, maybe, make it the last place we’d look. If he’s used his future knowledge to earn money already, and provided a year’s rent up front, he could persuade Gary. He may have memorised sports results, for example, before backing himself up. He left here without my wallet, but there was some loose change in the cup holder in my car, it would be easy to make a few bets using only what was in there. He could have gained more than enough funds to find a place to stay until he could arrange a bigger win, then he would approach Gary. My old flat still had a
for rent sign last time I passed. Gary knows me already, it would be the easiest way for my future self to find accommodation without having to supply identification. I think Gary would definitely jump at the chance of a lump sum, rather than wait for another interested party, it would mean that the property started earning again immediately.”

  “Do you think we should go and check it out? You could bring the swarm, it would make it harder for him to get away if he tried to run.” Victor said.

  “I’ll get them out of the hive, let’s go and have a look," Simon said.

  ∆ ∆ ∆

  Victor returned home to pick up the keys for Simon’s old flat, he’d placed them in a drawer and forgotten about them until now. Simon had handed his own set of keys back to the landlord on vacation of the premises, but he had previously given a copy of both keys — for the main building and Simon’s flat door — to Victor in case of emergencies. The key for the main building would be useful, but the flat key would not if Future Simon was home. They would need to hold on to the element of surprise if he were in fact there.

  When they arrived at his building, they made sure to avoid the main street and the windows of Simon’s old flat, so as not to be seen. When they walked up the steps to the front door, they noticed that the ‘For Rent’ sign had been removed from the fence. They let themselves into the building and climbed the steps, Victor and Spencer staying to the very edge of the flight where they were least likely to cause creaks until they reached the flat door. Simon delegated a few of his drones to pass through the keyhole which was, thankfully, skeleton key style. If that wasn’t the case, there might have been enough space under the door to slip through.

  The data from the drones was transmitted back to Simon’s queen. “I don’t see anyone yet," he told the others in their ear pieces.

  There were only a few rooms to check, the bathroom, bedroom and combined living room and kitchen. The bedroom and living room were empty, but the bathroom’s door was closed. The drones had very accurate sensors that could echolocate anything that might be behind the door, but Simon didn’t want to risk alerting his future self if he was in fact in the bathroom, since the echolocation required sending out a small pulse. The sound might be too low for him to hear through the door, but Simon was feeling a little anxious and was being over cautious. If his future self made any noise in the bathroom, the sensors would pick it up. He searched the door for gaps and cracks. If his duplicate was in the bathroom, he might notice the small drones entering under the door. The bathroom was small and didn’t have a lot of places to enter stealthily. The drones were smaller than a fruit fly or flea, but again, he was being over cautious. So far, the drones weren’t picking up any sound vibrations, so it was probable that there was no-one in there. It was still a long shot that Future Simon even lived here, so entering without permission could become another problem entirely.

  Simon sent his reconnaissance drones back to the living area. Inside the space that Simon once used as a workshop, he found that the area didn’t look too dissimilar from when he lived there. There were partially built devices spread around the room, allowing little room for comfort, Simon began feeling hopeful. On a folding table in the centre of the room were items that he recognised, he hadn’t noticed them previously since he was only looking for signs of life. Beside an open laptop were two homemade photon boxes. They definitely had the right place. Simon let the others know, and they silently celebrated with some air punching and fist bumps.

  They quietly unlocked the door and entered discreetly. Once inside Victor and Spencer tiptoed through to the living room, avoiding the creaky floorboards by keeping close to the wall. Victor went back to the front door to lock it, so as not to alert Future Simon when he arrived home. Then he went to the bathroom door, held on to the handle and in one swift motion, pushed the handle and opened the door, preparing for whatever might be on the other side. As expected, the bathroom was empty, and the only window was firmly shut, no one had escaped that way.

  Now all they had to do was park themselves in the living room and wait for Simon’s body to unwittingly walk itself right back into the simulated arms of its rightful owner. They all sat in reflection of their luck with finding him in the first place they looked. It seemed too easy, hopefully not one of those movie moments where ‘too easy’ revealed itself to be a trap.

  They checked out Future Simon’s time drive setup, which was composed similarly to the drive they had started out with, the laptop also had external storage like theirs. Keeping their voices low, they discussed the possible reasons why Future Simon would need the boxes, he already had plenty of future knowledge. They surmised that the future as he knew it was as good as gone once he stole the body of his younger self, so he may want to contact his future counterpart for information on how his arrival had altered this reality. He could also have been planning to use it to stay ahead of the PRE-Innovations group, but it was now too late for that. They tried to access the laptop, but it had a password lock. The hard drive might also be secured if they were to attempt access via USB. Simon had separated his drones into three groups, he sent first to the bedroom, the second to the bathroom and the third stayed with Victor and Spencer in the living room. Once Future Simon realised he had unwelcome guests, the groups would be able to pen him in. Should he try to make a hasty retreat, they could pull the same trick that he had used, flying into his nasal passages. The drones hovered at the ceiling, out of sight.

  Their wait was long and tedious since they couldn’t afford to make a sound above the level of a whisper. Simon could at least be in two places at once, so he didn’t share in the boredom, keeping himself busy back at HQ at the same time.

  Two hours passed before they finally heard the key enter the lock of the front door, Victor and Spencer moved quietly to an area of the room that would be the last place visible to Future Simon as he entered. The door opened, and the body thief stepped through, he headed directly for the living room while Simon’s drone groups moved from their positions to follow. He entered the lounge-kitchen to come face to face with Spencer and Victor.

  “Ah. So, I guess plain sight isn’t the best place to hide," the older Simon said calmly.

  “Yeah, I think just about any other flat in town would have been better than this, checking door to door would have been our only other option," Spencer said.

  “And what do you think that coming here has achieved? “ Future Simon asked. “I won’t be coming back with you,” he began backing out toward the door. “not now that you’ve screwed the future even further.”

  “Sorry?” Victor asked.

  “Yes, your attempts to improve the future just pushed the extinction of the human race further towards the present.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “You should, I sent myself all the details via the box I acquired from you, you can check my laptop for yourself if you just agree to join me. Your little nanobot deal brings in a new era of healthcare, you almost made the human race immortal. The medical drones can cure just about anything, it can even slow down the ageing process for those with enough cash to spare. Fewer people dying, birth rate rising thanks to nano fertility treatments. It all leads disaster, what did you think would happen? You need to stop fighting and help me with my plan, I refuse to watch it all happen again because you were too self-righteous to see the truth.”

  “If all you’re saying is true, why don’t you come back with us, help us to put it right. We can figure out the right way to do this.” Spencer pleaded.

  “I tried that once before, remember. Didn’t work out too well for either of you. No, I think I’ll have to cut my losses here and bid you adieu once more.” Future Simon turned to run, only to come face to face with himself. “But how? You didn’t h...” he was unable to finish his sentence as Simon’s drones had flown through his airways and forced a loss of consciousness. He collapsed to the floor.

  “Do you think he was telling the truth?” Victor asked Simon.


  “Probably, but that doesn’t mean we have to resort to desperate measures. We can fix it, I’m sure. My future self was only on the first attempt from the sounds of his story, we have plenty of extra lives before it’s game over.”

  “I agree. Sometimes things get worse before they get better, it’s no different here. We’ll get there, we can’t let him convince us otherwise.” Victor bent to hoist Simon’s hijacked body. Spencer helped get the limp form onto Victor’s shoulder, gathered the laptop and hard drive and followed Simon and Victor out of the door. She locked the flat door behind them, and they headed down the stairs to the rear exit. From there it was a short walk to where they’d parked the car, and thankfully they arrived there unseen while carrying Simon’s limp body. Spencer opened the back door on the car, and Victor carefully placed the body across the seats.

  Simon made his replicated hand more robust and opened the car boot, he slid inside closing the hatchback door behind him, then assumed the shape of a box that could barely even be seen through the rear window. Future Simon remained unconscious for the entire journey back to HQ and his subsequent mind backup. Once back in his own body, Simon would amend the software that had housed his virtual mind so that it was contained and inescapable. They wanted Future Simon to be able to talk to them via the speakers as Simon had been able to and hear them via the microphone, but they also wanted to make it impossible for him to infiltrate any of the computer’s other systems. That would be a disaster.

  Chapter 27

  Immediately upon completion of the unconscious Simon’s mind scan, the contents of his borrowed brain were overwritten with original Simon’s backup file. When the two-hour transfer finalised, he opened his eyes and looked at his hands. It felt strange to have all of his senses back, and he was surprised to notice that he missed a few of his new ones. Simon removed the helmet and rose from the chair, highly aware of returning aches and other sensations, he wiggled his fingers and then squeezed them into a tight fist.