Tempus Fugitive

by Nicola Rhodes

  ‘Coincidence,’ scoffed Tamar. ‘Besides that’s a generalisation. What about King Richard?’

  ‘We decided on that one together.’

  ‘Oh shut up.’

  * * *

  Denny was actually about to be proved wrong in his theory for when they landed in the file Tamar immediately recognized it as Ancient Greece. A far more Ancient Greece however than the one she had known. The coastline where her home town would stand seemed a prehistoric landscape, yet clearly it could not be, for these were historical files, weren’t they?

  ‘Well, there’s nothing much to be seen here,’ said Denny after a few minutes. ‘What do you think? He can’t be here! There are no people.’

  It was Denny’s day to be proved wrong. Just at that moment a figure appeared. That of a young woman carrying a box as carefully as another woman might carry her baby.

  She was a tall woman and almost as beautiful as Tamar, but her face seemed to have no expression. One got the impression that she was unscathed by experience or emotion, untouched by life and yet she did not look vacant or silly, just inhumanly serene. Denny was fascinated, Tamar nervous. There was magic at work here, or she was a monkey! Big magic. She tugged at Denny. ‘Let’s go,’ she hissed. The woman – you really could not call her a girl, (although she looked no older than about sixteen) she was so tall, looked up.

  ‘He gave me this box,’ she said in a sing song voice. ‘He told me I must not open it up.’ For the first time, an expression flitted across her face. ‘I am his to be commanded,’ she said. ‘So why do I wish to disobey?’

  Tamar started violently. ‘Don’t interfere,’ she hissed at Denny. ‘Say nothing, we shouldn’t be here.’

  Denny sighed; it was the same old song. ‘We never should,’ he said. ‘Just once I’d like to end up somewhere that we are supposed to be.’

  ‘Shhh.’

  The woman was clearly talking to herself. The feeling that they got, was that she only ever talked to herself – that she had no one else to talk to. But in that case, thought Denny, who was the “He” who had given her the box?

  ‘I must not open it,’ she muttered. ‘But then, if I must not, why was it given to me to keep? Surely if it is my own box, I can do with it what I wish. I wonder what it contains? One little peep cannot hurt. No, I promised, oh but how silly, it is only an old box.’

  ‘She knows what’s in it,’ said Denny. ‘I can tell.’

  ‘Yes,’ agreed Tamar, ‘She’s just talking herself into it, justifying herself.’ She tugged at Denny’s arm again. ‘We should go now.’

  ‘Why? Do you know what she’s got in there?’

  ‘I’m not sure, but I think, I think that that’s Pandora.’

  For a moment Denny looked blank, and then he went white. ‘Oh God!’

  ‘Oh Zeus!’ responded Tamar.

  The woman appeared to have come to a decision. ‘I will open it.’ And she lifted the catch.

  ‘RUN!’ yelled Tamar, already halfway down the beach. Denny followed, not fast enough. It was horrible.

  To be caught in a maelstrom of all the ills of mankind is indescribable. But I will try.

  On the one hand, there were the physical effects. It was like being caught in a huge whirlpool in the middle of the worst storm ever. He was cold and dizzy and sick, more sick than any human being ever was or will be. His head pounded with the noise, and he was pulled in every direction, it felt as if his body were being torn apart. And this was nothing compared to the emotional effects. To feel all the pain of what the whole of mankind would ultimately suffer with just one heart to take it, was unbearable. To feel the evil that men would feel and inflict, the misery and the jealousy and the cruelty, the grief, hunger, death and betrayal.

  Denny thought, and hoped, that he was going to die. It lasted only a few seconds, each one an eternity, and then he lay on the sand. He was very still.

  Tamar ran toward him on wobbly legs. She had been away from the centre of the storm, but she had caught the backlash of it, so to speak, before it had dissipated.

  As she reached him, he sat up. ‘Crimeny,’ he said and threw up violently. Then he grinned. ‘I don’t half wish you had chosen the file,’ he said.

  ‘Are you okay?’ she asked in disbelief, she had felt it, a tiny portion of it anyway. She could not even imagine what it had been like for him. He would be changed forever. She was surprised he was not catatonic.

  ‘I’m fine,’ he said. ‘Just a bit you know, seasick.’

  ‘Seasick?’

  ‘Yes, but otherwise, just the same.’

  ‘Just the same? But you can’t be, not after that, after feeling all that. I’m sure it would have driven me insane.’

  ‘I always knew it, you know,’ he explained. ‘I’m human, so it’s always been inside me, all that stuff. It’s in every one of us, I suppose. No surprises there.’ He grinned again. ‘It’s just a bit much to take all at once like that, you see, but I’m okay now. Just feel like I’ve got the world’s worst hangover,’ he laughed. ‘I tell you, mead’s got nothing on that box. Shall we get out of here? I could use a stiff drink. No chance of that I suppose?’

  Tamar shook her head, not in negation, but in disbelief.

  Denny misinterpreted this gesture. ‘Thought not,’ he said ‘You’re probably right. I daresay it’s the last thing I need.’

  ‘Huh?’

  He got to his feet. ‘Come on. Askphrit’s not here, let’s get on. And you’re choosing the next file,’

  ~ Chapter Eleven ~

  It may have been noticed by the more observant reader, that after terrific experiences such as the one Denny had just been through, he and Tamar often refused to talk to each other about it afterwards. I’m sure psychiatrists would have a lot to say about this attitude. They would bandy words like “repression” and “isolation” about like nobody’s business, but I would like to see any person, even a psychiatrist, handle such an experience any better. One must not assume that Denny and Tamar withdrew after these experiences because they were not close to each other; I personally have a different explanation for their reticence. You can disagree if you like, or perhaps you do not care. After all, it is not as if you are being paid to care, like the aforementioned head quacks. However that may be, I think it likely that there was, for them at least, nothing much to talk about really. All that could possibly be said was already understood by the other, due to their common experience and their telepathic link. And as to the rest, the uniqueness of the experience, could not be explained in any wise, so there was no point trying. In any case, Denny said no more about Pandora’s Box, and Tamar did not ask.

  Tamar chose the next file, as instructed, and, as usual, at random.

  They appeared to be in London and yet, despite the fact that it was early evening, the streets were eerily deserted. A loud siren was going off.

  Tamar recognised it. ‘Air raid,’ she said tersely.

  As if to confirm her words, a man came running around the corner and repeated what she had said, and added. ‘Run for the shelter.’ He disappeared around the corner, and then the bombs started dropping.

  ‘Bit early,’ Tamar mused. ‘It’s still quite light.’ There was no question of them running for shelter, and they stood curiously watching the piecemeal destruction of the city, having a view from amongst the dropping bombs that must, I think, be unique. Being both on the ground, and yet not running away.

  ‘It’s the blitz,’ said Denny excitedly. ‘WWII, do you realise what this might mean? It depends on the date of course, but we’re damn close.’

  WWII, you will remember, was the time Askphrit had chosen to despatch Denny’s granddad.

  Tamar frowned. ‘The date, yes. That’s the question, isn’t it?’

  ‘If it’s before 1941, we’re …’

  ‘Tut, man,’ scolded Tamar. ‘Look around you. Look at the cars – didn’t you notice the clothes that man was wearing? If this is the ’40s, I’ll eat my knickers.’

  De
nny looked around him, casually at first, then in shock. He showed Tamar a very white face. ‘B-but, this, this is – now!’

  Tamar nodded, calmly enough. ‘Near enough, yes.’

  ‘But this is impossible.’ This from a man who knew, without a shadow of a doubt that nothing is impossible. Except possibly not finishing the last of the choc chip cookies once the packet’s been opened. Or getting a politician to give you a straight yes or no.

  Tamar grimaced. ‘I don’t know about impossible,’ she said. ‘But there is definitely something funny about this.’

  ‘Funny!’ Denny was outraged.

  ‘Strange then,’ she amended.

  ‘You don’t say,’ said Denny sarcastically. ‘Strange you say, well that clears that up then, I’m so glad you’re here to explain these things to me. Strange! Of course it’s bloody strange, strange enough I should say.’ He paused. ‘Strange,’ he said again. ‘Strange, strange – no, the word’s lost all meaning.’

  Tamar was tempted to slap him, to bring him to his senses, as they do in plays. But since she was feeling much the same way, she forbore.

  ‘Let’s try to think this through logically,’ she said.

  ‘Logically?’ Denny threatened to start all over again. Tamar slapped him.

  ‘Sorry,’ said Denny, rubbing his face. ‘I’m okay now.’

  Tamar pursed her lips. ‘Hmm – okay, we need to find a newspaper, find out the date. It’s either the future somehow, that we’ve got into, in which case I want to know about it, or …’

  ‘How can it be the future?’ Denny protested. ‘These are historical files, aren’t they?’

  ‘Depends,’ said Tamar cryptically. ‘Or, as I was saying, it’s the past, as is more likely, and Askphrit’s done something. In which case, I really want to know about it.’

  ‘What do you mean, “depends”?’ Denny homed in on this remark.

  ‘On which point you started from. Time is circular. Our descendants said so. You know – the one’s we met in the past.’

  ‘Yes, but …’

  ‘Watch out!’

  At this point, a building collapsed on Denny effectively putting an end to this line of speculation for the time being. There’s nothing quite like having half a house fall on your head to clear the brain, after all.

  By the time he had climbed out of the wreckage, he had had time to think about it somewhat, and he thought he understood. After all, he reasoned, every file they entered represented the present to the people who were living in it. This presumably included the present that they knew as the present, which was not the end of time, hopefully. If time is circular, then the files were accumulative. They flowed into each other. Past, present and future were just entry points in the system.

  If this were true, then it made their task all the harder. He could not help hoping, that his speculations were wrong. He looked at Tamar. She just nodded. ‘Got it now?’ she asked. ‘Let’s find out when we are.’

  No, Denny shook his head. ‘I’d rather not know,’ he said, ‘let’s just get out of here.

  They stopped for, a moment, to watch, as Big Ben was struck, and crumbled slowly to the ground.

  ‘After all,’ he explained, ‘what can we do about it, anyway? If it’s the past and Askphrit has changed it somehow, the best thing we can do is catch him and hopefully prevent his doing it again. And if it is the future, well, we can’t change it, and frankly, if it is, I’d rather not know. I’ve learned my lesson about seeing into the future. It’s nothing but trouble.’

  This was indisputable; Tamar nodded. ‘Okay, if that’s what you want, let’s go.’ She caught his hand and they took another look around at the devastation of war, and both said a silent prayer that it would never have to happen. And then – ‘Close file.’

  ~ Chapter Twelve ~

  ‘I think we’re going about this all wrong,’ said Denny.

  ‘Oh yes? Illuminate me.’

  ‘Well, Miss Sarky Pants. Askphrit’s using the files like us, isn’t he, to move through time? So hasn’t he got to open and close files the same way we do? Which means, doesn’t it, that he has to come back here to enter another file? Why don’t we just wait for him here?’

  ‘Hmm, it’s a good idea in theory, with just one problem. We don’t know that he is moving through time, he might just stay in one place – or rather time.’

  ‘But we’re never going to find him like this, just jumping into files at random, he could be anywhere! Isn’t there some better way?’

  Tamar thought about it. ‘No.’

  ‘You know, I thought at least the numbers of the files would go in some sort of order that we’d be able to work out, but they seem to be just random.’

  ‘Yes, I’ve noticed that. The numbers must relate to something else, not the chronological order. It’s beyond our means to find out what it is though.’

  ‘What about those personal files?’

  ‘How’s that going to help?’

  ‘Maybe if we find the one for my Granddad …’

  ‘And how are we going to do that? Besides, how do we even know that he’s still there? Maybe he’s moved on to some other ancestor of yours – Christ he could be in Troy by now.’

  ‘Will you stop going on about Troy. Besides, how the Hell would he know about that anyway?’

  ‘He knew about Grandpa!’ Tamar pointed out.

  ‘Well – that’s a lot more recent.’

  ‘Ha! That depends on where you’re looking from.’

  Denny didn’t have a good answer for this. ‘Well okay then, these files, isn’t there some kind of key? We never know where we’re going to end up, until we get there. It’s ridiculous. Why isn’t there a door marked ‘Help’?’

  ‘How should I know?’

  ‘Well I’m fed up with the whole thing.’

  ‘We’ll find him. I know we will.’

  ‘Huh, s’what you say.’

  * * *

  Stiles was becoming quite adept at file jumping; he was even beginning to enjoy it. It was a shame, he thought, that he could not have gone with Tamar and Denny – seeing the past, albeit briefly, was kind of fun. On the other hand, he had to admit, it was probably just as well that he had not really.

  If he had not come back, then they might never have worked out how to access the files properly, and Tamar and Denny would probably have ended up hunting through time randomly for the rest of eternity.

  He had now sent all the displaced persons from history back to where they belonged. Whatever the various ramifications of their little adventure might be, was out of his hands now, and he would just have to hope that it was not too serious. Now it was time to find Tamar and Denny and bring them back.

  * * *

  ‘Okay, we’ll try the personal files,’ said Tamar. ‘But first, I think we should try mainframe.’

  ‘I thought we were in mainframe,’ said Denny, perplexed.

  ‘I mean the central files. Like you said, maybe there’s a key to these files and … shh, someone’s coming!’

  Denny opened a file at random, and they scrambled in.

  They were falling through the sky, as if from an aeroplane except that there wasn’t one and also people who jump out of planes usually take the precaution of bringing a parachute. ‘Who the hell designed these files?’ bellowed Denny over the sound of the screaming wind.

  Tamar did not answer; she was busy panicking. When she tried to use her powers to teleport safely to the ground, she found that she could not. She no longer had them. Denny did not know this of course. He himself vanished in a small whirlwind and landed safely on the ground. He watched Tamar falling and wondered in a detached way why she was not on the ground already like him. By the time he realised that she could not do it, it was almost too late he was about to shoot into the air to catch her when … Was it a bird? Was it a plane? No, it was Mega Man! No way!

  Denny actually rubbed his eyes as the caped crusader (no – that was Batman) swooped through the sky out of nowhere a
nd caught Tamar just before she hit the ground, to a round of wild applause. He then swooped away taking Tamar with him. Denny thought that he might well faint too; this was impossible! Where the hell was he?

  * * *

  ‘I think they are in trouble,’ said Hecaté, tapping anxiously at the keyboard.

  ‘What makes you say that?’ asked Stiles.

  ‘Just that they should have shown up somewhere else by now, at least I think so. I find it unlikely that the monster is to be found in this region of history, so they should have moved on.’

  ‘But you don’t know?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Where are they now?’

  ‘That is what I am telling you, I don’t know.’

  ‘I meant where were they last?’

  ‘I think, in the early 20th century.’

  ‘Can you pull them out?’

  ‘I am trying, leave me be.’ She flapped at him irritably. ‘Wait! A temporal anomaly, they may have moved on. But – it could be the monster.’

  ‘No, he wouldn’t let himself be caught out like that. He’s hiding; Tamar and Denny want us to be able to track them, don’t they? It must be them – like waving at the security cameras. Where are they?’

  ‘That’s odd,’ said Hecaté.

  ‘What is?’

  ‘It cannot be them.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘This is impossible!’

  ‘What is?’ Stiles lost patience and looked at the screen. He could just about make sense of what he was seeing. He gasped. ‘B-but – that’s impossible!’

  ‘That is what I said.’

  ‘What the hell could it be?’

  * * *

  Tamar opened her eyes in a hospital bed and said. ‘Where am I?

  ‘Megalopolis General,’ said a voice, she snapped her head round and saw the meekest hunk in the world. The man, despite being large and muscular, with fairly handsome features, managed to give off an air of complete and utter awkwardness and unattractiveness. It was almost as if he was doing it on purpose.