by Al K. Line
Amanda leaned forward eagerly, clearly as keen to understand what was happening as him, which was totally expected. Dale just wished they'd had the chance to talk a little about what had happened before the madness escalated.
The novelty of time travel was quickly wearing off; Dale knew this was only the start.
"Now, let me see," said Tellan, fiddling with his hat, lifting it on and off the table. "It's not going to be that easy to explain really. I've been at this a long time and—"
"How long?" interrupted Amanda.
"Let's just say a long time and leave it at that for now." Tellan put his hat down carefully, each movement fluid, controlled and precise, then stared at it as if daring it to try to escape. Once happy the hat wasn't going anywhere he resumed. "I know that this will be confusing for you, assuming, of course, that I am in the right timeline and what I was told by you is actually happening here? Hmm." Tellan looked at each of them in turn, expectantly.
What does he want to know? We should keep quiet until he tells us what this is really all about.
"You mean that we dug up a message from ourselves about the Hexad, got nabbed by two guys, they chatted to someone on the phone then we magically appeared back here like nothing had happened?" said Amanda.
Damn! So much for keeping our cards close to our chest.
Dale stared at Amanda accusingly, but she just mouthed a silent, and entirely innocent 'What?' before turning her full attention back to the strange man in their kitchen.
"Yes, that exactly," said Tellan, brightening. "Well, at least it seems that what you told me just before I left was actually true." He held up a hand to stop any interruptions. "Yes, I just left you both, the future yous, or different yous maybe, it gets so terribly confusing. This isn't really my thing to be honest, all this jumping about, only six goes for each Hexad, terrible business really." He held up his hand again.
Well, this is not the most sedate of mornings I've ever had.
"Now, do please listen closely and be patient while I tell you what I am allowed to." Tellan wiggled in his chair a little, as if the bare wood could be made to readjust itself to make him more comfortable, then smiled, seemingly happy. "The story goes, what you told me at any rate, is that ten years from now you get drunk and come up with this wild idea that if time travel were possible then it would be you two that discovered it, that you would get up in the morning, go out into your garden, dig a hole in the flowerbed that borders the fields to the east, and there you would find a number of devices, Hexads to be precise, and that you would then have the ability to travel in time."
"Hang on, but we won't do that will we? I mean, um... we did something like that last night, then this morning we found a message telling us, well, not much really, but it proved that we'd traveled back through time. Now you're saying that in the future we will do it again and find these Hexads, whatever they are? No way."
"Exactly," said Tellan, keeping a careful eye on his hat. "You won't, and that's because you stupidly came back and buried the tin with the note. You've caused a real headache. One minute I was there, happily living my life, and the next everything was different. My roses were planted in different places, I was sat in a different chair, and, well, just as inconvenient, some of the people I had grown really rather fond of had never even been born. Obviously it gets more complicated than that, much more, but this is enough to deal with for now I think."
"Um, Tellan, I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about. Sorry, please tell us something that makes sense." Amanda was looking as confused as Dale felt.
"You changed the future of countless universes by popping back in time after you found the Hexads and leaving the note. The way you told it to me was that you two, the two here now, found the note, so you had no choice but to make sure that you had the note, so that what happens next can happen. The problem is that when you did that you changed everything, as in my universe this didn't happen. It is ten years until you have your drunken conversation then dig them up the next day. And when you changed things by writing this note then all the possible futures changed. I say futures, but really they are all the past for me, but for you they are the futures. And with multiple futures created by jumping through time it means you are both responsible for the creation of new universes. It's a real headache if I am honest. Does that make sense?"
"None at all. Look, this is stupid. You're saying that other us's, is that a word? didn't do what we did today, and didn't write a note or anything like that?"
"Yes, that's what I'm saying."
"But in your world, universe or whatever, it was still us that discovered how to travel through time, but that us didn't do what we are doing now?"
"Exactly! You've got it?"
Dale thought for a minute, trying to get it straight. "Okay, so where is that us? The one that found the Hexads?"
"Well, obviously, now that you've seen the note, they don't exist. How could they?"
"Hey, hang on, what do you mean they don't exist?" squealed Amanda.
"Well, the other yous changed everything by doing what you just did. So now the other yous have gone, as that future can't happen now, can it? I think that's right, I told you it was confusing." Tellan stared at them accusingly.
"This is one of those paradox things, right? I thought that it meant that you could never go back to the past and change things. You know like you couldn't travel back and kill a young you as that would mean you were dead, which would mean that you would never be alive to grow up then go back and kill the young you. That's how it works, isn't it?"
"Yes, it is. In one universe. That's the rule, you can't change the past. How could you? Otherwise you could go back and kill your grandparents and then you would never have been born so you couldn't go back and kill your grandparents."
"Okay, so if that's the case," said Amanda, looking like her head was going to crack open, "then how is there time travel if now we don't suddenly go and dig up another part of our garden in a decade and find these Hexads, whatever they are?"
"It's simple really," said Tellan. "The rules go out the window when each event in the present, from the beginning of time onward, has multiple probabilities of something happening next. Whatever can happen does happen, in one timeline or another, and on it goes, some universes so close to this one that the only difference is where a single ant is at this very moment. Others have diverged so much that they don't resemble this universe in any way at all. It means that everything is possible and it means that every time anything happens, let alone when it involves going back and forth through the cracks in the universe you find yourself in, that everything plays out somewhere. But it's separate, not mixed up like it has now become. Your fault."
Dale leaned back in his chair, forcing himself not to bang his head on the table and have a nice sleep. "So some other us, from a different timeline, found these Hexads, then warped reality by coming to a different universe, in the past, and leaving us a note?"
"That about sums it up, yes," confirmed Tellan.
"But why on earth would we do that?" asked Amanda.
"Well, and this is why I said you two have been naughty, it seems you got drunk, which is appearing to be a bit of a pattern if I'm honest," admonished Tellan, "and had a ridiculous conversation about what would happen if you went back to the past and buried the tin with the note in. You see, in all other realities you had the conversation you had last night, but totally forgot about it. It wasn't until ten years later that you did something similar again, but remembered that time."
"So basically you're saying we got pissed and wondered what would happen if we found a note telling us time travel existed, but before we'd actually discovered the means to do it?"
"That's right. And when you did it, then it rippled through the future and as I was sat in my garden I felt everything change. Nobody else knew anything was different, how could they? Their whole past had changed to accommodate their present. You really should stop drinking you know?"
> "Hang on, how come you knew things were different then?"
"Why, because I'm The Caretaker, of course."
"Of what?"
"Of what? Everything, isn't it obvious?"
"What do you mean, everything?"
I don't like this, it's getting weirder than I could have imagined.
Tellan stared at him like he was an idiot. "I'm 'The' Caretaker. You can understand that, can't you?"
"Not really, no."
Tellan sighed. "I'm The Caretaker."
"You mean, you're God?" asked Amanda, speaking like she was about to get on her knees and prostrate herself.
Tellan studied his hat, picked it up and put it on his head, adjusting it until it looked just right. "I shall say this once more. I am not God, no. Like I said, I'm The Caretaker."
And with that he disappeared.
Something crackled, like worlds were ripped apart, rendered to dust. Tellan re-appeared. "Oops, silly me, I nearly forgot what I came here for in the first place. I didn't tell you what you have to do."
"And what's that?" asked Dale, from what felt like a million miles away. He was too stunned to ask anything else.
"Why, to save the world of course, what else? It's always something serious when events conspire against you in this manner. Toodle-ooh, and thanks for the coffee."
He was gone again.
"Well, obviously. We save the world all the time."
"I really, really need a drink," said Amanda.
"Me too, but I think we better quit the booze, seems like it gets us into quite a lot of trouble."
"Yeah, you could say that. Cup of coffee then?"
"Great." Dale would have much preferred something stronger.
Brain Melt
Present Day
Dale had read his fair share of time travel books over the years, watched all the Back To The Future movies repeatedly, and even some weird movie where two guys seemed to spend most of their time getting in and out of a box that allowed them to travel in time, and at the end of it all he'd been left scratching his head and driving himself half crazy by trying to figure it out.
It was impossible to make sense of. How could you go back and kill a young you, or your parents, so you never got old enough to then go back and do the deed, or were never even born? Obviously you couldn't. He'd reasoned that something would just happen to stop you being able to do it, but now it seemed that you really could go back and do it, and the result would be that you would just change every possible outcome from then on, or one outcome just enough to allow you to do what you'd already done.
If he was understanding Tellan, a.k.a. The Caretaker correctly, and he very much doubted that he was, then the result would be that if you did something that affected making what you did possible then you would, out of necessity, simply have to inhabit one of the alternate realities instead.
Or something like that anyway.
"God, is this making any sense to you at all?" he finally asked Amanda, who had been way too quiet.
"Nope, absolutely none. How could future us's — that really isn't a word is it? — do stuff that then changed the world to make it impossible for us to actually find the devices that allowed us to do it in the first place? This stuff just makes no sense."
"Unless..."
"Unless the devices are in the garden now, where Tellan said they would be?"
"Yeah, but it's years before he said we found them, and to be honest it all sounds too crazy anyway. Digging up time travel machines, or whatever these Hexads are, and... Oh, hang on. Even if they are there now we can't dig them up can we? As we need to find them in ten years so we can get drunk, come back in time, leave us a message and... argh, this is just nuts."
"But isn't that a different set of us? Not this actual us? That's what Tellan said, right? That it was the us that didn't find the message this morning."
"Exactly, and we aren't them, we are us, the ones that found it, the ones that found it as it was put there by this us, not them."
"So," said Amanda, warily, "does that mean that we can go look for the Hexads? Or that we can't as the future us that may not be really us, need to find them?"
"I have absolutely no bloody idea."
"Never mind, I've got it. How about if us, this us, here and now, but in the future, how about we send a Hexad back to us? I bet you can do stuff to send them anywhere, and we just send one back so that it appears on the table here, in say half an hour?"
"Damn, what did you say that for?"
"What? That's a good idea right?"
"Well, yeah, it's a great idea Amanda, but now we have to sit here for half an hour and wait. Why didn't you just say thirty seconds instead?"
"Ha, it's all part of the drama," said Amanda smugly.
"Well, let's just hope people don't come and drag us away to who knows where, or any more men come and tell us we have to save the world. I still want my breakfast too."
"Well stick the oven back on then and make it, we can eat while we wait."
~~~
Dale pushed his plate out of the way, feeling much better now he had some food inside of him.
Amanda continued the countdown. "Three. Two. One. Zero."
Dale stared wide-eyed at the tiny machine in the center of the table. "Oh. Wow!"
"How cool is that? Shall I pick it up?"
"Go for it babe, it was your idea." Amanda reached out an arm. "No, wait!"
"What?" Amanda pulled her hand back quickly, like she'd been scolded.
"Well, what if you set it off and disappear and I'm left here and you can't get back?"
"Silly. Of course that won't happen."
She seems pretty sure about that.
"How do you know?" asked Dale suspiciously.
"Because," she said smugly, "we both come back to bury the tin, right?"
Dale nodded warily. "Right."
"So obviously you can't get rid of me that easily. We are a team, just like we've been a team since you were eighteen. You're stuck with me for eternity mister, no getting away."
"I wouldn't want it any other way. But hang on, let me scoot over." Dale shifted his chair over, put a hand onto Amanda's leg and squeezed. "I bet that if you're touching then if one disappears then the other goes too. Maybe."
"Well, let's find out then. But what about chairs? That's touching me too. And the floor, which is connected to the house, which is connected to the ground. That would mean the whole planet jumped."
Dale just sighed and said, "Pick it up, please."
Amanda reached out a hand and took the silver cylinder off the table, wrapping her slender fingers around it. It had a series of blue lights running around its circumference in parallel, and the curved top consisted of a brighter blue dome with a 6 flashing on it. There were numerous weird, bumpy protrusions on the main body and what looked like some sort of dialing mechanism.
Looks like one of those new modern watches where you can see everything but the bloody time.
Amanda put a finger to the dome, tracing the outline of the flashing 6. It made a gentle 'click' and recessed slightly into the cylinder.
"Uh-oh."
"What? What did you do?"
"I think I might have set it o—"
~~~
1 Year Past
"That's us, putting the tin in the ground," whispered Dale, crouching down next to Amanda, trying not to think about the fact that they'd just jumped again, this time at least without it involving men having weird conversations on probably uber futuristic cell phones.
"Ssh, you don't want them to hear do you?"
"Well, they won't will they? I mean, we got the tin, they left it and blah, blah, blah, so I'm sure it's fine."
Maybe.
"You heard what Tellan said. He said that because of the stuff we did in the future we ended up changing whole universes and that we changed how all the other versions of us lived and what they did. We've already messed with things enough, so I don't want to risk it. Anyway, what would
you say?"
"I'd ask us what the hell is going on and how far into the future they live, you know, when they aren't jumping about in time. What you doing?"
Amanda was fiddling with the Hexad again, the blue glow illuminating the device so it could be seen easily even though all around was pitch black apart from the light from the torch of the other versions of them over by the apple tree.
We must be a bit drunk, I keep wobbling about over there, can't keep the torch straight. Not ideal when you're on important time travel missions. But then I suppose it doesn't matter as I know that I left the tin. Explains the cheeky note though.
Dale turned to Amanda, who seemingly hadn't heard his question. She was doing that thing with her lip when she was concentrating, biting it gently with perfect teeth, wrinkling up her nose.
"There, I think that's it. Ready?"
"For wha—"
~~~
Present Day-(ish)
"Look, if we're going to be doing this can you please give me a little warning that you're going to send us hurtling through the space-time continuum and maybe give me a heads-up about where we are going? When we are going," added Dale
"Sorry. Cool eh?" Amanda looked at her watch, then at the display on the oven. "Damn. We're ahead of ourselves. Just ten minutes or so, I think. Remind me to check what time we leave and make a note of it, so we can come back to now, not just try to get close enough."
"Um, sure. Can I have a look now? You've been hogging the Hexad. Haha, damn I feel pretty weird, this stuff makes your head really messed up. What's that?" Dale took the device off Amanda and looked at the blue domed top. There was a number 4 there in sharp digital display.
"Weird, it said six when I first looked at it. Ah, two jumps done. Hexad as in hex, right? That means six."
"So, what, it just does six jumps?"
"Dunno, maybe. Yes. Didn't Tellan say that?"
Dale put the Hexad down on the table, staring at the strange device. "So that means we only have four goes left and just the one device. We need to slow down and think about this, a lot's happened pretty quickly. For a start, who were those guys that took us, and didn't they say something about last jump or something? Maybe they only had one device too?"