Splinters In Time (The Time Bubble Book 4)

by Jason Ayres

  “Oh my God,” said young Josh. “It’s the end of the world.”

  Josh could feel his hopes of getting home slipping away from him once more. If this world really was about to destroy itself in a nuclear Armageddon, then that would end any hope he had of this Josh staying alive long enough to help him.

  What had happened here to create such a catastrophic scenario? He knew tinkering around in time had led to deaths before, but nothing on this scale. Was he somehow responsible for the demise of the billions that were about to perish here? One nuclear bomb in Guam was bad enough, but if the Americans and Russians started taking pot-shots at each other, the entire planet was very quickly going to turn into a giant bonfire.

  Seema’s broadcast continued, each update more devastating than the last:

  “And news just coming in, we are getting reports from Reuters that at least six nuclear missiles have struck the North Korean mainland.”

  “What the hell is Trump thinking?” said young Josh, aghast. “That’s right on the Russian border, not to mention Japan, South Korea and China. He’s going to poison the entire area.”

  They watched in horrified fascination, unable to tear their eyes away, as new footage showed more explosions taking place. Then reports of Russian missile launches began to come in.

  Despite the obvious fear in her voice, Josh had to admire Seema’s professionalism in remaining at her post, particularly as she was reporting from London which would almost certainly be the first target for any missiles heading for the UK.

  Young Josh standing beside him made no attempt at hiding his fear. He was clearly petrified at the growing realisation that his world was going up in flames. His terror was merely exacerbated by the noise coming from outside, where screaming people and wailing police sirens were all adding to the impending sense of doom.

  Josh couldn’t remain here any longer. There was nothing he could do to help these people, but he at least had a way out. It was devastating, seeing a whole world self-destructing in this way, but he had to remember that it wasn’t his world. He had to get away and he had to get away fast. Picking up the tachyometer which had been left on the desk when they started watching the TV, he held it out and prepared for the jump. The green light was on and he was good to go.

  This didn’t go unnoticed by young Josh, who screamed at him in panic.

  “What the hell are you doing? You’re going to use that thing to escape, aren’t you? Please, you can’t just run off and leave me like this. Take me with you.”

  His younger self looked at him, a pleading look of desperation in his eyes. It was the look of a condemned man clutching at one last straw of potential salvation.

  “Josh, I’d love to, I’d do anything to save you, but only one person can travel in a bubble at a time. This isn’t my world. I’m really sorry, but whatever the people have done here to cause this, they’ve brought it upon themselves.”

  “Brought it upon themselves?” screamed Josh. “You said yourself that you believe it’s your own time-travelling that’s created all these other worlds? How do you know it’s not something you’ve done in the past of this world to cause this?”

  Josh was well aware of the possibility, and had been trying to suppress such thoughts.

  “There’s no way of knowing that,” he replied.

  “It must have been you,” yelled young Josh, becoming hysterical with fear. “You’re going to be responsible for the destruction of my entire world. The very least you can do is sacrifice yourself and spare me.”

  With that, he lunged forward at Josh, attempting to wrest the tachyometer from him. Josh stepped aside, but not quite quickly enough, causing the two of them to collide and crash into the table, sending the Professor’s glass jars and other equipment flying and smashing in all directions.

  Josh still had hold of the tachyometer and, as he attempted to get up, pointed it in front of him to activate the bubble. He pressed the button but before he could get through. he felt the younger Josh’s arms wrest him backwards, pulling him off balance once again, dropping the tachyometer in the process. The two wrestled, both trying to get their hands on the magic wand, then suddenly it was all over as the younger Josh vanished.

  In despair, Josh realised immediately what had happened. His younger self had fallen into the bubble which, of course, was now gone. He had got his wish after all and escaped, travelling back months in time to another universe.

  To his relief, Josh saw that he had not lost the tachyometer. It was still on the floor where it had fallen, but having used up all its power for now, the light was back on red.

  He turned back to the TV to see more mushroom clouds billowing upwards on the screen. The scrolling bar gave confirmation that both Moscow and New York had been obliterated as the Russians and the Americans threw everything they had at each other.

  The apocalypse scenario that had always been feared in his own universe was now being played out right in front of him. He couldn’t see any way the human race was going to be able to survive this. Even if areas were not directly hit, the radiation released would surely traverse the entire globe and wipe out most life on Earth in a very short time.

  What was it he had read once? Only cockroaches would survive a nuclear holocaust? He had no desire to be around long enough to be eaten by them.

  He had no way out now until the tachyometer recharged. Until then he had to focus all his efforts on survival. He checked the time on the TV to find it had just passed midday. If he was going to stay alive for another twelve hours, he needed to come up with a plan, fast.

  Lifting one of the slats on the venetian blinds, he looked out of the window again. From here he could see right out through the college gates into the street beyond. Outside the confines of the college he could see a lot of people running around and more screaming than before. These panicky people would doubtless be the first to die. Perhaps that would be a merciful thing as he didn’t rate their long-term chances, even if Oxford wasn’t directly hit.

  But London would surely be targeted, and it was only fifty miles away. How much damage would a missile striking London do here? It would all depend on the size, he supposed, but he wasn’t hanging around looking out of the window to find out. If the blast did reach, it might still be possible to survive in some sort of shelter for the short time he needed.

  Doubtless there would be others out there seeking shelter but their long-term prospects weren’t good. Even if they did survive the blast, a long, lingering death from radiation poisoning or starvation would be the inevitable outcome.

  All he needed was somewhere underground with sufficient shelter to survive the blast and where hopefully any radiation wouldn’t seep in before it was time to jump. So, what were his options?

  What underground places were there in Oxford? He knew that many of the shops, bars and restaurants in the city centre had basements. He had eaten in one only the previous evening, but what would the situation be in those places? He couldn’t imagine being crammed in with hundreds of other screaming, panicking people would be a particularly enjoyable experience. And how could he create a bubble to jump through in such circumstances where someone else could fall into it, just as the younger Josh had?

  Then suddenly he remembered what Future Josh had said to him at the meal at Mario’s.

  “Don’t forget about the cellar.”

  Of course – this must have been the situation he had been referring to. He had the perfect place to hide out right here in the college. With the place running on a skeleton staff there would be few people onsite who knew about it, and the visitors to the college, if they hadn’t all run away by now, certainly wouldn’t.

  Getting to the cellar wouldn’t take him more than a couple of minutes. Once he was down there he would be in the dark about what was going on up here, so he decided that he could risk waiting a while longer to keep an eye on the news coverage. If it seemed likely that a bomb was going to hit London, he was sure he could be safely tucked away befor
e the blast reached Oxford.

  If no bombs did reach the UK, then getting through the next twelve hours should not be a problem. Even if America and other places had been wiped out, it would take longer than that for the poisonous radiation to be scattered around the globe by the prevailing weather patterns and the jet stream.

  What about radiation if London was hit? How long would that take to reach Oxford? Would it even come this way? That would depend on the weather, he figured. It had been raining on and off all morning and that might be his salvation.

  Trying to recall his meteorology, he was fairly sure that wet weather came from the south-west, across the Atlantic. That was good news in the short term, as potentially it would carry any radiation away from him.

  If only Kaylee were here. She would be able to tell him in an instant what to expect, but she wasn’t, and he was hardly about to ring her up for a weather forecast under the current circumstances.

  He continued to watch the news, trying to ignore the noises increasingly coming from outside.

  A few minutes later the screen cut away from the pictures of devastation to show Seema, alone in the studio in front of camera. There was what sounded like an old-fashioned air-raid siren going off in the background.

  “And I’m sorry to have to tell you that we now have confirmation from Downing Street that nuclear missiles of Russian origin are on course to strike London in the next two to three minutes.”

  Professional to the end, she was delivering her final word to the camera with barely a flicker of emotion on her face, even though she knew she must be about to die.

  “All I can say is please try to find whatever shelter you can, following the advice we gave out earlier. I would also like to say, as I believe we will be going off the air very shortly, that it’s been my absolute pleasure to report for the BBC these past six years and I thank you all for your support during that time. God bless you all.”

  She paused, as a low, rumbling sound grew all around her, a single tear emerging from her right eye and rolling down her pretty Asian features. Then the picture cut off, turning instantly to static.

  Josh switched the television off. He could have flicked through to see if any other channels were still broadcasting, but there was no point. It was blatantly obvious what had just happened and it was high time he was making his way down to the cellar.

  During his time at the university, Josh had enjoyed the luxury of many an evening’s fine banqueting in the company of the other Fellows. These exquisite meals took place in the college’s historic dining hall, a medieval building with thick, stone walls which ought to stand up well should the shock wave reach this far.

  Even better, beneath the massive flagstones that made up the floor was a hugely prized, fully stocked wine cellar, accessed through a wooden trapdoor in the floor leading to a stone staircase. It had been there for centuries and this was where Josh was headed now. It was undoubtedly the cellar that Future Josh had tipped him off about and he was hoping it would be far enough below ground to give him the protection he needed.

  He didn’t see a soul as he made his way through the college which suited him just fine. Most of the people onsite had been visitors and they had all fled. As he made his way down the steps into the cellar, pulling the door shut above him, he was relieved to see that there was no one else down there. Much as he felt sorry for the doomed people of the planet, he had no desire to spend the next twelve hours in their company.

  It was eerily quiet in the cellar. The thick stone walls of the building and the floor above had effectively insulated him from the outside world. It was almost as if the doomsday event taking place above wasn’t happening at all.

  He tried not to think about what must be happening up there, but alone and with no other distractions he couldn’t help it. He kept thinking about what the younger Josh has said, accusing him of somehow causing all of this. He really didn’t believe he would be capable of such a thing, not intentionally, anyway, but he couldn’t deny it was a strong possibility.

  After he had been in the cellar about fifteen minutes, the light went out. Whatever was going on up on the surface was clearly now close enough to wipe out the electricity.

  To blot out his anguish at his potential culpability, he pulled his trusty corkscrew out of his backpack, rummaged around until he found his torch and then went off in search of a decent bottle of wine. Settling on a bottle of 1982 claret, a year he remembered Charlie telling him was a fine vintage, he sat down on the dusty, stone floor and drank straight from the bottle.

  Eventually, having downed the lot, he felt tired. Lying down on the cold stone slabs, he swiftly fell asleep. He had no idea how much time had passed when he awoke, but he was very relieved to see the tachyometer glowing green again. There was no sign of any bomb damage; he just hoped that the cellar had afforded him the protection he needed against the radiation. He would know in a few days’ time if his hair started falling out if he had avoided it.

  Ordinarily he would not have considered jumping in an enclosed space like this. He had already visited one world radically different from his own. What would happen if he arrived next in a world where this building didn’t exist? He’d be buried underground which would result in an agonising, choking death. Perhaps that was all he deserved, as the man who had potentially wreaked genocide upon this world.

  Jumping from within the cellar was a risk, but it was the lesser of two evils. There was no way he could risk going back up to the surface – that could be suicidal.

  The only comfort was that Future Josh would undoubtedly have made the same decision and he had clearly survived. Clinging to that crumb of comfort, he prepared to jump once more, praying that he would survive to see another day.

  Chapter Fifteen

  December 2023

  He knew that if he landed underground, the game would be well and truly up, but it hadn’t stopped him taking the deepest possible breath before he stepped through. There was little this would achieve other than prolonging his life by a few seconds, but to his relief, he reappeared in exactly the same spot. There was no initial sign that he had jumped at all.

  He fervently hoped that the tachyometer hadn’t failed him now. He really didn’t relish being trapped down here, waiting for the radiation to kill him, even if he did have a few hundred bottles of vintage wine for company. Still, what changes had he expected to see? It wasn’t like outside where the changes in the weather were a dead giveaway.

  He turned and looked back to where he had been sitting on the floor before he fell asleep, flashing his torch around the area like a searchlight. There was no sign of the empty wine bottle he had left there. Reassured that he must have left the hell-hole of the previous world behind him, he climbed the stone steps and heaved open the cellar door.

  There was no one in the dining room, which was in darkness. He could see through the gaps in the curtains it was night-time outside. Only a few narrow shafts of yellow light from the old-fashioned lamp in the quadrangle penetrated through the gaps to dimly illuminate the room. It was just enough for him to make out the time on the old-fashioned grandfather clock at the far end of the room. It was just coming up to 5 o’clock.

  Presumably that would be 5am rather than 5pm, judging by the complete absence of noise from outside. It was so quiet, he suddenly became extremely aware of the ticking from the pendulum of the clock. He had dined in this room many times, but had never noticed how loud it was before.

  He was a little unsure as to exactly what date he had arrived at. He had calculated that he should have jumped back 128 days, but his younger self’s unexpected hijacking of the bubble may have altered that. Had he gone 128 as well, or would it be 256? He made some brief mental calculations to try and figure out where that would leave him.

  If he had gone back 256 days then it would be late December. 5 o’clock could mean morning or afternoon, as it was dark at both in December. He was still pretty sure it wasn’t the afternoon, though. That suggested he had
slept nearly 24 hours, which couldn’t be right. It had to be the morning.

  The clock chimed loudly for the hour, making him jump. He was still feeling a little on edge after the experience of the previous world. It was time to go and explore, confirm the date and find out what this universe had to offer.

  There was no one around in the corridors as he headed back towards the lab. Unless the Professor was pulling an all-nighter, he ought to have the place to himself. Pausing to look through a window on the way, he got the confirmation he needed that he had definitely arrived once again in December. There was a large, Christmas tree, glittering with lights in the centre of the quadrangle. Some wag of a student had stuck a puppet of Boris Johnson on the top.

  When he switched on the lights in the lab, he was reassured to see the Professor’s equipment scattered around on the desk as usual. He looked around but couldn’t find any evidence of his own presence here.

  This was his last chance of finding a younger Josh in the lab. He was now in the year he had graduated. His next jump would take him back to a time when he was still a student, and before he had started working with the Professor. The further back he went in time, the less developed his counterpart’s knowledge of time travel would be.

  Remembering what the Professor had done previously, he called up the database of college alumni on the touch screen but was aghast to find once again that his name was not on it. This was happening all too often.

  Next he switched the screen to TV mode, checking for differences on the news channel. Thankfully there was no sign of impending nuclear Armageddon this time, just bog standard news with nothing unexpected.

  Realising that he would have to go in search of Josh elsewhere, he left the lab and wandered into Oxford, waiting for his favourite café to open.

  By late-afternoon, he was sitting at the bar of The Red Lion in his home town, feeling depressed and downing the pints. His day’s search had once again led him to a dead end.