by Jason Ayres
Perhaps that was a consequence of the population depletion. Wages were high, and accommodation costs were low. This world may be primitive compared to the one he came from, but basic market forces were still at work.
Much as he would have liked to have spent the evening in the bar downstairs with the locals, supping the local beer and finding out more about this mysterious world where everything was so different, he forced himself to have an early night. To reach Oxford tomorrow he would definitely need the stagecoach which would use up his remaining funds.
He couldn’t even afford any food, but rummaging around in his backpack, he found a Twix and a packet of Roast Beef Monster Munch. It wasn’t much of a dinner, but it would have to do. At least there was some running water in the hotel, even if it wasn’t en suite. He had to go down the corridor to a primitive shared bathroom to get it.
It was quiet outside and there were no signs of any fireworks, despite it being November the 5th. That was almost certainly down to changes in the timeline which clearly stretched back hundreds of years.
It was not so quiet inside the hotel, though, where he was forced to endure the sound of Annie’s orgasmic screams as she entertained a succession of clients in the room next door to his.
His trip to Oxford the following morning proved to be quite an experience. His perception of stagecoaches was of landed gentry being held up by highwaymen. The real thing was far less glamorous. The wooden coach was designed to seat eight people, pulled by four horses, but considerably more passengers than that wanted to get on.
The concept of a limit on numbers and health and safety regulations in general seemed non-existent here. Josh had been fortunate to be early enough to get a seat – others were sitting on the roof and hanging off the back. There must have been at least fourteen people aboard.
Progress on the main road, if you could call it that, was painfully slow. It was single carriageway, and followed the route of what would have been the A34 in Josh’s time. There were frequent stops to negotiate farm animals and even at top speed, the coach didn’t go much more than about six or seven miles an hour. Even so, it was still faster than some of Josh’s journeys on the A34, where he had been trapped in some horrendous traffic jams over the years.
The journey was also extremely uncomfortable. Suspension was another thing that they didn’t seem to have heard of in this world and every pothole sent jolts through the coach that almost threw Josh out of his seat. How the people on the roof were staying on was beyond him. They must be well practised at riding this mobile bucking bronco.
It didn’t smell very pleasant in the coach either, largely because of the other people. There were no landed gentry in here. Most of the other passengers, all male, looked in need of a decent wash. Deodorant clearly hadn’t caught on here. Thank goodness it was November – he would have hated to have been trapped with these people during a heatwave.
It took nearly three hours to reach Oxford, but despite his discomfort, Josh had found himself enjoying the journey. The slow speed had given him time to get a really good look at the landscape around him and make comparisons to his own.
As he approached Oxford, it was clear that it was also a great deal smaller here. This wasn’t any great surprise, given what he already knew about the depleted population. The outskirts didn’t even begin until he reached roughly a mile from the city centre, about where Summertown was in his world.
He couldn’t be completely sure exactly where he was, as the roads and buildings were so different, but he could make a reasonable estimate of his location based on the gleaming spires in the distance. They were more or less as they should be.
Thankfully this also applied to the Bodleian which was not only where it was supposed to be, but also almost identical to the building he knew. It seemed that the older things were, the more likely they were to be unchanged. Hopefully he would be able to do all the research he wanted.
Over the next few hours, he devoured as many history books as he possibly could, putting together the pieces of the mystery. Finding the source of the change had been easy. He had already been given a huge clue with the news of a new King Harold being on the throne. It all stemmed back to one of the most important events in the history of England – the Battle of Hastings in 1066.
In this universe, William the Conqueror had been vanquished, leaving Harold as the victor bringing a whole new line of succession. William’s death didn’t therefore support the theory that everyone in Britain was descended from him. If that was true, how did that explain Annie the prostitute? She was so similar to Lauren that it had to be the same person. Clearly some bloodlines must have persevered into this century, whether William was present or not.
After Hastings, history had deviated considerably. With the Normans not established in Britain, centuries of warfare continued to rage between England, France and other countries in Europe. The concept of parliament had never been properly established, leaving England and many other countries in Europe still ruled by absolute monarchies. No wonder there had been no fireworks the previous evening. Guy Fawkes, if he had even existed, would have had nothing to blow up.
With resources continually required to fight the wars in Europe, exploration of the world had taken a back seat. America had not been discovered until the 19th century, and was not even called America. The whole of the North American continent was now referred to the West Indies, and remained under the control of the native population who had managed to resist colonisation. The same was true of Australia, now called Kamerra, according to the world map. In fact, the map of the world looked very different to the one Josh was familiar with. The shapes of the continents were the same, but many of the names on it differed.
He was not surprised to discover that the world’s population was estimated at only around 700 million, less than one tenth of what he was used to. Of these, only around eight million lived in England, the population kept down by the wars, the plagues and the complete lack of modern medicines.
Josh could have quite happily stayed in the library all night, but was ushered out at closing time into the early evening darkness. With no money left, and feeling incredibly hungry, not having eaten all day, he knew he couldn’t stay in Oxford another night.
The tachyometer was charged up and ready to go, so he headed for Christ Church Meadow. Despite the very different nature of most of this world, this area was remarkably similar. Even his faithful old tree was there, in the same location it had always been. Hopefully, next time he would find himself somewhere a little more like home.
Chapter Fourteen
September 2024
He emerged, blinking as his eyes reacted to the bright sunshine that suddenly illuminated the world around him. The time of day hadn’t changed, but he had jumped more than two months back this time, straight into the lighter evenings.
After several trips arriving in the long, dark November and December days, it made a welcome change to arrive in late summer. Pleasant as the warmth of the sun on his skin was, it also served as a wake-up call. It was a reminder that the duration of his trips back in time were increasing exponentially. He was going to have to find a way out of this predicament soon. He had already jumped five times and was no nearer finding salvation than when he started.
Scanning the Oxford skyline, he was encouraged to see that everything seemed to be back where it should be. There were lots of people in the park, all wearing clothes appropriate to the era, and he could hear the distant hum of traffic on the High Street in the distance.
Everything around him was screaming out as reassuringly normal. Now he just had to hope that applied to the Josh here as well. He just had to hope he wasn’t missing, or dead, and that he hadn’t screwed up his life in some way or other.
It had just gone 7pm, too late to go hunting for his counterpart tonight, and besides, he was absolutely starving after two days with hardly any food. He was also extremely tired. He needed food and rest. Thankfully his money was once again legal
tender so he headed straight for an all-you-can-eat buffet restaurant on Magdalen Street. There he pigged out to his heart’s content.
“Got my money’s-worth there,” he quipped to the young girl on the till, patting his stomach. He was quickly learning that when he got the chance to eat, he needed to take full advantage. His last trip had demonstrated all too well that during this journey he could never be sure where the next square meal was coming from.
After he had finished, he went straight back to what was becoming his regular hotel on Abingdon Road. He booked himself in and went straight to bed, stuffed and exhausted. He didn’t even bother turning the TV on to check the news. It could all wait until morning. He wasn’t too worried about things in this world. He hadn’t noticed a single thing out of place here since he had arrived.
He slept better than he had for a long time, his body still recovering from the effects of his recent day’s work on the railway tracks. It had been a long time since he had done any physical labour – at least thirty years in fact, when he had worked for his dad during the holidays when he was doing his degree.
Consequently, when he awoke, ten hours later, his whole body felt extremely stiff. His sore limbs didn’t bother him too much, though, because his mind was in a good place. Things might not have gone according to plan so far on this adventure, but he was feeling pretty optimistic that things were going to work out this time.
To reassure himself further, he stopped by the Covered Market to pick up his paper, dated Wednesday 4th September. Checking the front page, he was pleased to see that there were no fake, dead rockstars this time. The headline was consistent with a story he remembered very well as it had dominated the news for several weeks in the summer of 2024:
TRUMP GIVES KIM JONG-UN FINAL WARNING
There had been an escalation in hostilities between America and North Korea at the time over the latter’s continued development of nuclear weapons. The Russians and Chinese had also become involved and things had got very tense before a peaceful resolution was reached.
Unlike the previous evening, it was wet and drizzly outside, so Josh decided to stay undercover and read about what was happening in the world in his favourite café. Sticking to his new fuelling-up-when-he-could policy, he ordered the largest breakfast and took his time looking through the paper.
The sports pages were full of vitriol directed at England’s football team after an abject performance in their first qualifying game for the 2026 World Cup. Alan Shearer, writing in the paper, had described the 1-0 away defeat to Lithuania as a “new low”.
If only he knew, thought Josh, remembering England’s remarkable recovery and unlikely triumph, culminating in a second World Cup triumph, sixty years after the first. Such had been the euphoria that David Baddiel had even dusted down his vocal cords to record a new version of “Three Lions” to celebrate the win. A new golden age of English football was confidently forecast, but it proved to be a false dawn. In 2055, after another thirty years of hurt, England was still waiting for another trophy.
Turning his mind away from football, he speculated that with everything here being so similar to home, there might be a chance he had found his way back to his original universe. If that was the case, it ought to be plain sailing from here on in. Leaving the café, his spirits couldn’t be dampened by the rain as he headed towards the college, full of hope of finally finding his younger self.
Although it was early September, a few weeks before the start of term, there was still a strong chance that the young Josh would be there, and possibly the Professor, too. Although lectures only took place on around thirty weeks of the year, researchers, fellows and other academics spent a great deal more time there than that. In fact, Josh had known quite a few over the years who seemed to practically live in their rooms.
Josh had also preferred the holidays to term time while he was carrying out his time travel research. He had been able to get a lot more work done without the irksome distraction of giving lectures.
It was peak tourist season in Oxford and the college was packed with visitors, far more than on his last visit. He more or less waltzed straight in and through to the laboratory unchallenged. Security had never been the college’s strong point. When he opened the lab door, he was delighted to see his younger self tinkering about with some of the Professor’s equipment.
“Still messing about with that tachyonics stuff, then?” he stated. “Yeah, I wasted about three years on that, too.”
His younger self looked up, surprised at this sudden intrusion.
“Who are…” began the younger Josh, but that was as far as he got before recognition quickly dawned. “You’re me!”
“Clever lad,” said Josh, “I knew you wouldn’t let me down. Yes, it’s me, come to visit from the future, and you know what that means, don’t you?”
“That time travel really is possible!” said the young Josh, instantly seizing on the implications. “I can’t believe I look so old, though! How long did it take? Decades by the look of you.”
“Hey, less of the old,” replied Josh, who was still feeling the aches and pains from his day on the rail tracks. He felt a pang of jealousy, seeing this young pup in front of him. What would he give to be his age again?
He hadn’t figured out a way of making himself younger, yet, though he had thought about it. Could it be possible? Could he transfer his consciousness into a younger version? That would be an interesting way of cheating death. He’d have to investigate it when he got back, which was looking a lot more likely now.
“So what brings you here?” asked young Josh. “This is just awesome! There’s so much I want to ask you!”
“Believe it or not, I’ve come because I need your help,” replied Josh. “And in return, I’m going to help you. You don’t want to spend the next three decades trying to figure out all this lot, do you? With my help, you’ll be able to get there a lot quicker.”
Over the next hour or so, Josh once again related the tale of everything that had happened up to this point. Young Josh eagerly lapped it all up, hanging on his every word, seemingly indistinguishable from himself at that age. Surely he was as good as home.
“So what I’m really counting on is you inventing this, and then coming back here with a working replacement so I can get home,” concluded Josh, handing his younger self the tachyometer to examine.
“And you say it took you nearly thirty years to create this?” asked the young Josh.
“Well, a bit less than that,” replied Josh. “I travelled here from 2055, but I’ve been using various earlier versions and prototypes for several years already. But, yes, it did take a long time, with a lot of trial and error involved. Now I’m here, you can cut out all the blind alleys and do it in a fraction of the time.”
As he finished the sentence, he became aware that there was a lot of noise coming from the window. He could hear people shouting and then a woman screaming.
“What’s going on out there?” he asked.
“I’ve no idea,” said the younger Josh. “It’s not normally this lively, even in Freshers’ Week.”
They both made for the window, peering through the venetian blinds to the quadrangle outside.
Outside, there were people running in all directions, screaming and panicking.
“Oh my God, get away from the window,” said the younger Josh. “This must be some sort of terrorist attack.”
“In Oxford?” queried Josh. “I don’t remember that.” There had been constant terrorist attacks in the early decades of the century but they had mainly been in the bigger cities. Something unusual was clearly going on here, though.
Whatever it was, he really hoped it wasn’t going to mess everything up. It had taken long enough to find a Josh that could help him and he didn’t want anything to jeopardise that now.
“Let’s see if we can figure out what’s going on,” said Josh, turning towards the touch screen on the wall. “TV on,” he said. “Turn to BBC News 24.”
What appeared on the TV was far more horrifying than any local terrorist attack. The top half of the screen was dominated by a distant view of what was clearly a nuclear explosion, a huge, bright, orange base billowing up into the classic mushroom cloud shape against the night sky. It was like something out of a big-budget film.
Seeing it on the BBC’s news channel, with the familiar rolling captions underneath, left no doubt that this was no movie. This was real and it was happening now. A large banner along the bottom of the screen read:
BREAKING: NUCLEAR MISSILE STRIKES GUAM
Beneath that was a scrolling bar, on which Josh could read more details:
MILLIONS FEARED DEAD…TRUMP VOWS RETALIATION…UK TRIDENT RESPONSE ON STANDBY…
While all of this was sinking in, Josh could hear the familiar voice of the channel’s news anchor, Seema Mistry, describing events, as the image of the bomb was replayed over and over again on a loop.
“It’s understood that the missile struck at approximately quarter past midnight, local time, which is quarter past eleven in the morning here in the UK. We are also getting unconfirmed reports of intercontinental missiles being launched by the USA in retaliation, which would seem to be consistent with what we heard from President Trump just a few moments ago.”
Josh had known Seema since she was a local reporter in Oxford, and had never known her be anything but the consummate professional, reporting calmly on all manner of shocking incidents over the years. But today was different. He could feel the fear in her voice. She was doing her best to mask it, but if even the unflappable Seema was scared, this had to be bad.
“There has been no statement yet from the Russian Federation, but you may recall that yesterday President Putin clearly stated that use of nuclear weapons by the USA would not be tolerated under any circumstances.”