Time Rep

by Peter Ward

  Geoff gulped down the rest of his tea and wiped his mouth clean. He was quite fond of his toes and hoped he’d still have some left when this was all over.

  Geoff had never been the biggest fan of tourists. They always seemed to have the urge to get in everyone’s way by reading maps at the bottom of escalators, or to waste people’s time by asking them for directions to somewhere that didn’t exist. Now that one of them could possibly be trying to injure, maim, or even kill him in some bizarre way, he found himself even less enthusiastic at the thought of spending a day with a whole group of them.

  The group in question were made up of an average number of men, women and children, all of whom looked like … well, tourists. They all had their guidebooks, cameras, sunglasses and rucksacks, and were waiting patiently for Geoff and Tim at the foot of Nelson’s Column in the middle of Trafalgar Square—a popular tourist destination for anyone visiting London, whether they were from the future or not. Some of the tourists were randomly pointing at double-decker buses and black cabs as if they had just seen an endangered species in a safari park. Others were looking at passersby and whispering excitedly to each other. The children seemed to be entertaining themselves by chasing after the few pigeons that had gathered at their feet in the hope of food. Geoff did a quick headcount and guessed their numbers to be no more than thirty. The tourists that is, not the pigeons.

  It was a beautiful day in Trafalgar Square. All the clouds you would normally expect to find over London in November must have been distracted by something good on television because there wasn’t a single one in sight. This left the sun to have all the sky to itself, shining so brightly that it appeared to be in Geoff’s eyes even when he was looking in the opposite direction.

  The tourists quickly seemed to recognize Geoff. As they saw him approach, they immediately stopped what they were doing and gathered together.

  “Leave the talking to me for now,” Tim whispered, walking ahead and smiling at the group. “Hello everyone!” he beamed.

  “Hello!” the group chimed back.

  “Welcome to the twenty-first century. For those of you who don’t know me, my name is Timothy Burnell, and I am one of Time Tours Inc’s recruiters. First off, I’d like to congratulate you all on passing your paradox scans and being the first group to visit this time period. Well done.”

  Geoff surveyed the group and thought about which person in particular might deserve an extra special congratulation for slipping their violent motives past the supercomputer undetected. Maybe it was the old guy at the back who was dressed entirely in black or the young lady at the front looking at him funny. That said, he didn’t like the look of the tall man wearing a sunhat to his right, either. It wasn’t an especially suspicious looking sunhat, but then his attacker would have been a bit daft to wear something to arouse suspicion, like a sunhat with knives sticking out of it, or something. Come to think of it, he wouldn’t have been surprised if the real attacker turned out to be the most innocent-looking person in the group.

  “As I’m sure you all know,” Tim said, breaking Geoff’s train of thought, “the gentleman standing behind me is Geoffrey Stamp—the man we’ve just recruited to be the Time Rep for the twenty-first century.”

  Everyone stared at Geoff, which he didn’t like at all. Now that he thought about it, they all looked a bit suspicious in their own way. He attempted to stare back at them in some sort of Clint Eastwood “don’t mess with me” style but ended up looking as if he had something in his eye.

  “I’m sure most of you will be familiar about the role of a Time Rep,” Tim continued, “but for those of you who are new to time travel holidays, allow me to explain. Geoffrey will essentially be your tour guide while you are here. He’ll show you the sights, teach you a bit more about the culture of the time period, and answer any questions you may have. I know some of you may be a little starstruck to see him in the flesh, especially after all the coverage you would have seen about the attack, but please, don’t be shy in asking him anything. He’s only too happy to help.”

  Geoff wouldn’t really have chosen to describe himself as being “only too happy to help,” and smiled uncomfortably at the group. All of a sudden, one of the children broke free from her parent’s grip and ran over to him.

  “Mr. Stamp?” she said, tugging at his t-shirt.

  “Aggghh!” Geoff screamed, pushing her hand away.

  The little girl looked a bit upset.

  “Did I do something wrong?”

  “Sorry,” Geoff said. “I … I thought you were going to hit me.”

  “No,” the girl said, playing with her hair. “I wanted to see if you could take us to the zoo later. I want to see a penguin. They don’t exist anymore where I’m from.”

  “Oh,” Geoff said, looking sheepishly at the other tourists. He felt a little embarrassed at the way he had reacted. “I … er … I don’t know. I’ll ask Tim if it’s OK.”

  “Thank you!” she said, running back to her parents.

  “Will you all excuse me for one moment?” Tim said to the group. He put his hands in his pockets and marched over to Geoff.

  “What the hell’s the matter with you?” Tim whispered.

  “Sorry,” Geoff replied. “I thought she might be the attacker.”

  “She’s only eight! How could she be the attacker?”

  “I don’t know,” Geoff said, “although I have been attacked by an eight year old before …”

  “I see,” Tim said. “And how old were you at the time, dare I ask?”

  “Eight,” Geoff admitted.

  As the day went on, Geoff’s paranoia towards the group of tourists had settled down considerably. He’d taken them to London Zoo, shown them Buckingham Palace, walked them round Piccadilly Circus, put them on the London Eye, and even sent them on a pseudo shopping spree down Oxford Street. To preserve the integrity of the space-time continuum, the tourists weren’t actually allowed to make any purchases—they just went into a few shops, picked things up, put them down again, and walked out without buying anything, a bit like the majority of people who visit an Apple store. After all this, not one of them had made any attempt to hurt him, and by now they’d all certainly had the opportunity. The only brief moment of panic had occurred when one man accidentally trod on his foot in Harrods, but apart from that, today had been relatively pain free. Yes, Geoff was feeling far more relaxed as the sun began to set and decided to finish the day off by taking them to see Big Ben.

  “I guess that wasn’t so bad after all,” he said to Tim as they led the group along the north bank of the Thames towards Westminster.

  “It’s not over yet,” Tim replied. “Remember—you’re looking after these guys for a whole week. One of them may be trying to lull you into a false sense of security—strike when you least expect it.”

  “Wait a minute,” Geoff said, feeling his heart beat a little faster. “I’m not expecting anything to happen to me now! Does that mean something’s going to happen now?”

  “I don’t know Geoff,” Tim replied, looking out across the river. “All I’m saying is, don’t let your guard down.”

  “But I thought you were my guard?” Geoff said, feeling a slight headache coming on. “I mean, you know me! I’m no good in a fight! I’m afraid of moths, for goodness sake!”

  “Mr. Stamp?” a voice called from behind. It was one of the girls near the front of the pack. “Can I ask you something?”

  “Um … sure,” Geoff said, regaining his composure. He flashed a cautious glance at Tim as he turned to look at her. “What is it?”

  “I’d really like to know what it’s like living in the twenty-first century,” she said. “What do people do with their spare time? How do they relax? What do they aspire to be?”

  “That’s easy,” Geoff answered. “In people’s spare time, they watch television. If they want to relax, they watch television. And they aspire to be on television.”

  “So you’re s
aying everybody is obsessed with television?”

  Geoff opened his mouth to respond, but he suddenly found himself being interrupted by an almighty roar from above. The noise was deafening, like the sound of a thousand jet planes flying overhead at once. All around, everyone stopped what they doing and looked up. Geoff was pretty curious about where all the noise was coming from as well, and did the same.

  As it happened, the noise appeared to be coming from a large number of flying saucers descending from above. There must have been well over a hundred of them that swooped down over the city and maneuvered themselves through the air like nothing Geoff had ever seen. He got a closer look at one as it banked on its side like an enormous, badly thrown Frisbee and shot over the Thames at an incredible speed, the sheer force of its engines parting the river in two in its wake. Geoff was speechless—these ships were enormous with a perfectly smooth metallic exterior. He began rubbing his hands together nervously—from his extensive experience of watching hundreds of science fiction movies in the past, intimidatingly large flying saucers looming overhead was rarely a good thing. It didn’t usually turn out that they’d got lost by mistake or wanted to deliver some flowers; it usually meant they wanted to cause trouble.

  He was scared.

  This feeling turned out to be completely justified as one ship circled over the Houses of Parliament and fired a bright orange laser beam into the building that effortlessly ripped through its target as if were made of papier-mâché. It was clear that whoever was responsible for designing the Houses of Parliament’s structural integrity hadn’t taken into account the possibility of an alien ship firing a laser beam into it, and the building promptly exploded in every direction, the few remaining walls collapsing in on themselves in a smoldering cloud of dust with only Big Ben still standing. As more ships descended on the city, the wind began to feel gale force in strength. Behind Geoff, a news vendor was struggling to stop his papers from blowing away, despite the fact that they were now a little out of date. Geoff was no journalist, but in light of recent events he assumed The London Evening Standard would be revising its front page for the late edition to cover this invasion, unless the Beckhams split up in the meantime, of course.

  “Wow!” one of the tourists shouted at Geoff over the noise. “You didn’t tell us this would be part of the tour!” It was the man Geoff had earlier thought was wearing a suspicious sunhat, which by now had blown clean off his head. He lifted up his camera and took a picture of one of the flying saucers as it sliced through Big Ben and sent the spire crashing to the ground, the clock faces shattering across the road like plates being smashed in a gigantic Greek restaurant. Geoff recognized the angle from which they were looking at Big Ben. Unless he was mistaken, the photo that had just been taken would look exactly like the one he had seen on the poster the other day, if they ever lived to see it being developed.

  “Oh my God!” Tim screamed, running over to Geoff. “It’s the Varsarians! It’s the fucking Varsarians! And they’re two hundred fucking years early! Do you know what this means?”

  “We’re going to die, aren’t we?” Geoff said, watching in horror as one of the spacecraft did a swift barrel roll and tore through a gridlocked Westminster Bridge, sending the vehicles tumbling into the river below. This was now the second time he had watched London being burned to the ground, but this time he doubted if the Lord Mayor would turn up and declare that a “woman could piss it out.”

  “They must be the ones who cracked the algorithm!” Tim shouted, grabbing Geoff’s arm and running for cover. “You must have changed something without realizing it after all! We’re doomed! We’re fucking doomed!”

  Geoff agreed. They were indeed doomed.

  He started rubbing his hands again.

  “Think!” Tim said, looking desperately around for somewhere to hide. “This must have something to do with your hand! What could you have changed?”

  Apart from having picked his nose a little less than usual, Geoff couldn’t think of anything he’d done differently.

  “You’re supposed to be one of the most insignificant human beings that’s ever lived! What possible influence could you have had over the timing of the Varsarian invasion? And why didn’t that fucking computer spot it?”

  That was quite a difficult question, and right now Geoff was a little bit preoccupied with not being killed to give it much thought.

  All of a sudden, one of the Varsarian ships roared through the sky above, the blistering force of its engines flinging cars and buses up into the air.

  “Look out!” Tim said, pushing Geoff clear of a Ford Fiesta that was pirouetting towards them.

  Geoff felt himself violently lunge out of the way, the oncoming vehicle narrowly brushing behind him and crashing across the pavement. He looked round. Tim had been completely crushed. His lifeless body lay still, barely recognizable under the car’s twisted metal chassis.

  It was at this point that most of the tourists began to realize that the alien invasion they were witnessing might not have been part of the tour after all, and that perhaps something might have gone a tad wrong. Everyone was now running around screaming and climbing over each other to get away, the less fortunate ones being vaporized by the bursts of laser fire from above. Geoff looked up at the sky again. There were spaceships everywhere, firing lasers at anything that moved. A wave of jet fighters appeared to have been scrambled by the Air Force in a futile attempt to defend the city, but their rockets and missiles had no effect, disintegrating into dust whenever they struck the hull of an attacking ship. With no means of defending themselves, the fighters were soon shot down, spiraling destructively into a row of tower blocks below.

  All of a sudden, the spaceships stopped firing and slowed to a quiet hover, the roar of their engines dying down to a low hum. Those that were still alive on the ground stopped running around and looked confusedly up at the sky to see what was happening. Geoff did the same. What he saw was incredible: the ships were slowly maneuvering themselves into a giant circular formation that rotated clockwise high up in the sky. Ship after ship joined the circle, each one glowing bright red as if they were all powering up to collectively fire some sort of massive weapon. As the last ship completed the circle, the sky changed color, going from pale blue to bright red itself. Geoff felt compelled to get down on his knees and place his palms on the floor.

  “Oh please,” a man said nearby. “It’s a bit late to get down on your knees and start praying, don’t you think? Haven’t you heard? This is happening all over the world! You don’t really think God can save us now, do you?”

  “I don’t know,” Geoff said. “I … I don’t know why I’m doing this.”

  Almost immediately, one of the ships shone a spotlight directly down on Geoff’s position and broke free from the formation, swooping down at an incredible speed. Within seconds, it had slowed to a halt a few feet in front of him and repositioned its engines to point downwards. As it lowered itself towards the ground, it became clear just how big these ships really were—the hull spreading itself not just across the road but right across the rubble of demolished buildings to Geoff’s right, and the river to his left. As it descended the last few meters, the downward thrust of the ship’s engines cushioned its landing, instantly melting the tarmac of the road down into a sticky black mush and vaporizing part of the river.

  The ship’s engines powered down, and a small door in the lower section of the hull slid open a few feet from the ground. All around, people fell silent and motioned forward to see what would happen. The optimists in the crowd were probably hoping that some prankster television presenter from your typical “aren’t the general public a bunch of morons” show was going to jump out and shout, “Gotcha!” but somehow this seemed unlikely.

  Geoff waited. He couldn’t understand why he had chosen to kneel on the floor with his hands on the ground and why he felt compelled to wait here, of all places, for something to happen. Under normal circumstances, he woul
d have been more compelled to run away and hide up a tree. It was almost as if he’d been hypnotized into doing this or something.

  Within moments, a strange-looking creature appeared at the door, crouching down slowly to look at Geoff. Geoff in turn looked back up at it. The creature must have been about six feet tall with two arms and two legs, and generally the same body structure as that of a human being. Its appearance, however, was a little more animalistic—its skin green and leathery like that of a crocodile’s, and its eyes small and black with burning red pupils in the center. So this was a Varsarian. It opened its mouth to speak

  “We recognize the ancient position of Granbleen you have adopted,” the creature hissed. “You have something you wish to say?”

  Geoff didn’t think he had, but suddenly found himself saying, “I bring a message from Tringrall. In the year of Dranculees, you must revert.”

  After saying these words, Geoff frowned at himself, as if he had just burped without expecting it.

  The alien nodded.

  “Thank you, human,” it said, getting to its feet. “We will remember.” The door closed again, leaving Geoff to look at his own stupid reflection in the hull of the ship. He wondered how the alien was able to understand what he’d said and respond back in plain English. Perhaps they’d stopped off at a service station on their way to Earth and picked up a phrase book?

  As the spaceship powered up its engines, the alien’s parting words echoed around in Geoff’s mind. “We will remember?” It was Geoff who was beginning to remember something at that moment, something important, something about the algorithm … That was it! He had spoken to Eric before he died! He had been told how to fix the loophole! Unfortunately, just as Geoff was having this revelation, the spaceship switched its engines to full power, angled its thrust directly towards him, and burned his body to a crisp as it rejoined the circular formation of flying saucers high up in the blood-red sky.