The Time Bubble Box Set

by Jason Ayres

  He couldn’t risk doing this while Peter was still inside. He had no way of knowing what effect it might have upon him. It might cause him to emerge there and then but there were a number of more unpleasant possibilities. It might trap him there forever like a fly in amber or, even worse, kill him.

  He thought about trying it out in the lab on Milly, but Alice had made it quite clear that no mice were to be harmed in the pursuit of his experiments. Besides, even if Milly did emerge safely, there was no way to guarantee that the same would happen with Peter. He had to work out another way to try it out.

  He made two visits to the tunnel in the summer of 2064 to take measurements using the tachyometer before finalising his plan. He would jump forward in time to the point, early in the next century, when Peter would be emerging from the bubble. Then they could test it out together while there was no one inside.

  As during his earlier visit when he’d travelled back to witness Lauren’s death, Josh had taken the train. He generally stuck to carrying out his measurements in the evening when he knew there wouldn’t be many people around. No one ever seemed to take much notice of what he was doing, so by the time he was ready to make the jump forward in time, he’d become a little lax on the security front.

  Despite the precautions he always took when conducting experiments in public, he had no reason to suspect that anyone might be observing him and was pretty relaxed as he headed off to the station for the third time, all ready to meet Peter in the future.

  He had not the slightest inkling that he was being watched.

  Chapter Nineteen

  June 2064

  In contrast with the way he’d conducted a lot of his past affairs, Dan had wised up. Rather than reacting to problems without thinking and getting into trouble as a result, now he took his time and planned things carefully.

  He knew that he could not afford to make a single mistake if he had any hope of returning to his own time. If Josh got wind of the fact that Dan was on to him, he’d probably lose his chance forever.

  The new cool and calculating Dan’s strategy had been to play the dutiful recovering patient, cooperating fully with the terms he’d been released on. He ensured he was in his accommodation after 8pm at night as required, and that he attended all the outpatient appointments on time.

  He was also sweetness and light with Amelia at all times, but that was something he didn’t really have to try at. His relationship with her had enabled him to experience a genuine new feeling that he’d never had in his life before: respect for a woman.

  In the meantime, he got on with the serious business of tracking Josh down. It didn’t take him very long. Virtually everyone conducted their lives online by the mid-21st century so there was no shortage of information to be found on him. From social media, to press quotes and details of conferences he’d attended, Josh’s life was there for all to see.

  Finding which college he worked at was easy. All he then had to do was keep watch outside for him to enter or leave. Dan was cool about this: he was in no hurry. If it meant being patient and waiting for days on end in the pouring rain for Josh to appear, then so be it. He wasn’t going to blow his cover by going into the place or by making enquiries. He certainly couldn’t risk being seen.

  The entrance to the college Josh worked at was close to the city centre, opposite a small park where Dan could sit at a safe distance and observe. Fortunately the weather was being kind and the park was a very pleasant place to be in the English summer sunshine.

  He took to going there on a daily basis, taking his lunch and buying the daily disposable epapers that along with the online editions had almost completely replaced the old paper versions.

  He marvelled at how modern technology had made such things so cheap. For less than the price you once would have paid for a paper newspaper, you now got the disposable electronic version. They were printed to order in the shop in under a second, on a piece of incredibly strong silicon less than a millimetre thick, yet flexible.

  They looked a little like an ultra-slim line, old-fashioned 10” tablet at first glance, but you could bend and fold them just like an old-fashioned paper. The text was crystal-clear, and the pictures and videos could be projected in front of you to bring the stories to life.

  When you were done, you just slotted it into one of the many recycling bins that lined the streets. It seemed there was a bin for everything in 2064. Almost everything could be reused in one form or another.

  The only thing that hadn’t changed about the paper was the content. The modern technology made no difference to what was written inside. Most of the leading titles were more or less the same as they had been a century earlier.

  The one Dan had always bought was still going strong. The front page still had its traditional red top, sensationalist stories and celebrity gossip. Even the problem pages were still going strong.

  “My robot’s cheating on me,” screamed out the headline from the problem page, with a picture of the latest men’s toy, an incredibly realistic-looking, full-size robot doll, scantily clad in black stockings and suspenders.

  “Ridiculous,” muttered Dan, though he secretly fancied having a go on one of the dolls. He’d more or less given up on the idea of ever finding a willing human partner. Perhaps one of the “sexbots”, as they were known, might be the answer. He couldn’t afford to buy one on his benefits, but he had heard that you could rent one by the hour. Robot prostitutes were having a huge impact, it seemed, judging by another story he read about traditional prostitutes who were up in arms about the impact all of this was having on their trade.

  Perhaps when all this was over, he might investigate. Meanwhile he turned to the sports pages, where there was a debate going on about introducing robot referees. The football European Championships were currently taking place in Scandinavia. The previous evening, England had been knocked out in the quarter-finals following a controversial refereeing decision that had awarded Germany a penalty.

  A robot would never have made such an obvious blunder, argued one pundit. Another countered that a robot could never appreciate the subtle nuances of the game.

  Dan wasn’t particular bothered about all of this. The days when he’d have punched someone or smashed up a pub because England had lost at football were long gone. Such things just didn’t seem important anymore.

  He enjoyed being in the park. The agreeable summer weather made it a very pleasant place to spend an afternoon. He was beginning to appreciate simple things he had never noticed before, like birdsong and flowers.

  Most days he would arrive about lunchtime, stop off at the supermarket opposite Josh’s college to buy a sandwich and the paper, and then settle down on his favourite bench. Directly facing the college, he was able to glance up frequently to keep an eye on the entrance.

  What he didn’t realise was that while he was watching the college, he himself was being watched. Keeping track of him via the microchip that had been embedded in him as a condition of his release, Amelia was aware that he was making frequent trips to the park. What she didn’t know was why.

  She was still quite sure there was more to Dan than met the eye. She still hadn’t quite been able to shake off the feeling that there might be some element of truth in the time travel story. She’d looked at his internet activity to see what he’d been doing, but hadn’t come to any conclusions. She certainly hadn’t made the connection to Josh.

  Dan had been very careful on that score. He knew that his internet was being monitored, so he made sure that he looked up as many of his old school friends as he could. By diluting his activity in this way, he figured it might not look quite so obvious that he was seeking out information on one particular person. It would just look as if he was innocently looking up old friends.

  She’d followed him to the park a couple of times and observed him, but couldn’t really see that he was doing anything out of the ordinary. He just seemed to be having lunch and reading the paper.

  The only thing he w
as doing that could be perceived as wrong was feeding a few crumbs to the pigeons. There were signs in the park asking people not to do so. But Amelia couldn’t fault him for that. She saw it as a sign of his growing humanity. Anyone who had seen the greedy, fat version of Dan from the past, stuffing his face with food at every opportunity without ever offering to share, would never have believed it.

  Amelia was there the day that Dan first caught sight of Josh. He had been feasting his eyes over the holographic Page 3 girl dancing around above his epaper in her bikini. He’d have preferred her topless like in the “good old days”, but they were long in the past. Scantily clad was still acceptable, but nipples were not – even on robots. Apparently they had rights, too.

  As he glanced up from the dancing model, described as Sophie, 24, from Cheshunt, he saw a man walk out of the imposing, black, wrought-iron gates about a hundred yards in front of him. It was unmistakeably Josh. Dan had studied enough photographs of him online to recognise this older version of him straightaway.

  Dan wasn’t really expecting anything enthralling to happen, and it didn’t. Josh had come out of the college, headed across the road to the shop, and then returned clutching a sandwich and a drink.

  Dan stayed where he was throughout and didn’t attempt to follow him in any way, which was probably just as well. Amelia, observing him from afar, had come to the conclusion that Dan wasn’t doing anything other than enjoying a summer’s day in the fresh air. She decided she was happy to let him spend his days there unobserved, and went back to the secure unit to deal with more pressing cases.

  The next day followed a similar pattern. Josh came out, went to buy his lunch, and went back into the college. This wasn’t really getting Dan any further forward. He began to toy with the idea of trying to follow Josh inside the college to find out exactly where he worked. Perhaps there would be some clues there.

  He mulled this over but ultimately rejected it, for the time being at least. It was just too risky. There was way too much danger of getting caught. Maybe he should follow him home instead. That wouldn’t be as dangerous. He decided that he would try this the following day.

  Fortunately, he didn’t have to because the next day things took an altogether more interesting turn. Having failed to appear at lunchtime, Josh didn’t emerge until late afternoon, just as Dan was about to give up and go home. This time, rather than heading over towards the shop, he turned right towards the city centre.

  Dan observed him closely as he walked along the street. He was dressed in a red and white, chequered, short-sleeve shirt, denim shorts, sunglasses and a baseball cap. What did he think he looked like? thought Dan. The guy was over sixty years old: didn’t he look a bit ridiculous dressed like that? Josh had always been a bit of a poser at school, and clearly it was still the case now.

  In fact, Josh’s attire wasn’t that unusual by 2064 standards. Dress codes at work had become a lot more relaxed as the century had progressed, and people tended to wear the clothes they felt most comfortable in. This had long been the case at the university where, other than the gowns required for formal occasions, people pretty much wore what they wanted.

  As people aged, their fashions aged with them. Unlike previous generations, people didn’t reach a certain age when they suddenly started dressing in beige. These days, pensioners everywhere were sporting the same sort of outfits they’d worn when they’d been skateboarding as teenagers back in the noughties.

  The baseball cap was now as much a symbol of the current generation of pensioners as their grandfather’s flat caps had once been. This was one of many changes that had taken place that Dan was gradually beginning to take note of.

  Dan was interested to see that Josh was wearing a large backpack which looked pretty full. He looked as if he was about to head off on a mountaineering expedition, which was completely at odds with his attire. It seemed an odd combination.

  “I wonder what he’s got in there, then,” he said to himself. Clearly Josh wasn’t just popping out to the shops. Following at a discreet distance, Dan was determined to find out.

  Unaware that he was being followed, Josh turned out of St Giles’ and into Beaumont Street, walking alongside the Randolph Hotel and past the Playhouse. Dan stayed on the opposite side of the road next to the Ashmolean Museum, about 200 yards behind. He was pretty confident Josh wouldn’t recognise him at this distance, even if he turned around.

  By the time Josh had crossed the canal along Hythe Bridge Street, Dan guessed he must be heading for the railway station. He was right, and as they approached the station, he realised he was going to have to plan his moves carefully.

  If Josh was catching a train, how would Dan know which one? He had no way of knowing unless he followed him directly onto the platform, and you couldn’t get onto the platform without buying a ticket. At least you didn’t used to be able to – maybe it was all done differently now: everything else was.

  As he entered the concourse he could see that, although the place was a lot more clean and modern than it used to be, not everything had changed. It was still necessary to pay at a machine to buy a ticket and then insert it into a slot to pass through a gate to get onto the platforms.

  He waited by the coffee shop for Josh to buy his ticket, and then watched him pass through the gates and turn right. Quickly he dashed to the nearest machine and pressed the touch screen to bring up the ticket options. As was usually the case, he didn’t have a lot of cash on him, so he bought the cheapest ticket he could. It was a single to his home town, just fifteen miles to the north. But even that was 45 euros, which was three days’ food money for Dan. It was a lot considering he was on benefits.

  “Bloody rip-off,” he commented to a young man at the next machine. “And I bet they still don’t run on time.”

  Bemused, the young man was lost for words, which was just as well, as Dan didn’t have time to stay and chat. He grabbed his ticket as soon as it was dispensed, ran across to the gates, scanned it, and passed through onto the platforms. This didn’t pose any sort of challenge as the machines were exactly the same ones that Dan had been using all his life.

  In this futuristic world where there was so little he had had to learn again from scratch, it was always reassuring when he came across something that hadn’t changed.

  As he turned right, he trod carefully. He couldn’t see Josh, but there was only one train on the platform in the direction that Josh had taken. It was on platform 3, bound for Cambridge. A quick glance at the departure board showed Dan it was due to leave in less than two minutes.

  Walking as closely as possible to the edge of the platform, to minimise the view of him from the train’s windows, he walked to the first door of the first carriage and pressed the button to open it. Entering, he saw that the carriage was only half-full. There was no sign of Josh. That was a relief from the point of view that he hadn’t blown his cover. On the downside, not only could he not be certain that Josh was actually on this train, he also had no idea of when or where he would be getting off.

  He’d just have to sit by the window and watch at each station to see if he got off. At least his ticket was good for the train he was on, as least as far as the first stop. Perhaps that was where Josh was going: he did come from the town after all.

  The swift, modern train covered the journey to his town in just 12 minutes. He sank a little lower in his seat as he watched the passengers streaming off the train, a mix of locals and shoppers, drawn to the ever-popular shopping outlet. Just as he was beginning to think he must have lost Josh, he caught sight of him towards the back of the crowd, heading for the exit from the station.

  He jumped up and got off the train just in time. Seconds after he alighted, the doors swooshed closed and the train began to depart. He was only about five yards behind Josh. It was risky being so close, but better than getting stuck on the train.

  As they approached the gates, he hung back, waiting until Josh got a safe distance ahead. Once they were both out of the station
he could resume stalking his prey.

  He followed Josh along the main road, through the town centre and out the other side. As they headed along the path that led towards the HS2 railway line, it became quite apparent where they were going. Josh was heading directly for the tunnel where all the trouble had started.

  This couldn’t just be a coincidence. Whatever Josh was doing there, it had to be in some way connected to what had happened to Dan. This could be his big chance to find out how to get back to his own time.

  There were not many people around, so Dan kept his distance. To be spotted now after getting so close to finding the answers he craved would be devastating.

  As Josh reached the tunnel entrance, he paused and looked around him. Dan quickly darted to the side of the path, about two hundred yards behind, and ducked behind one of the horse chestnut trees. He waited a couple of seconds and then risked peering around the side of the tree.

  Josh wasn’t giving any indication that he had seen Dan. He had taken his backpack off and was now reaching inside. Dan noticed that he was looking around the whole time, glancing first one way and then the other. Clearly whatever he was doing, he didn’t want to be seen. What did he have to hide?

  From his position behind the tree, Dan was ideally placed to see what Josh was doing. His whole body was obscured by the huge trunk, and he was far enough away, with various bushes and brambles blowing around in the wind between as to be practically invisible, as he continued to observe.

  He watched as Josh pulled the tachyometer from his pocket. Dan had no idea what it was, of course. To him it just looked like some sort of long, metal stick. Whatever it was, it was clearly something important, judging by the attention Josh was paying to it.

  Fascinated, Dan watched as Josh held the device out in front of him. What on earth was he doing? A few seconds later he had his answer. With a last look around him to check he wasn’t being watched, Josh did what he had done so many times before. He stepped forward and vanished.