Timeshock - I Want My Life Back (5 page)

This was not how it was supposed to turn out, thought Nigel.

Reluctantly he began to plan his escape - into another reality.
 
This time he would be less flashy.
 
Make a fortune but be quiet about it.
 
Earn proper respect from proper people rather than hang out with groupies. This time he would check out what the Nigel in that world was like first.
 
If he was mad or dangerous he would leave straight away.

This time he would take no chances with inconvenient arrivals in hotel rooms or warehouses.
 
He knew the cottage was empty five years ago, so he would go there.

He packed the time machine into his other car - a Bentley - and prepared to drive to the cottage when he was interrupted by a curious Marla.
 

“Where are you going?” asked Marla.

“I am just going to see a friend in the country,” lied Nigel.

“I will come too” said Marla.
 
Nigel was not happy.
 
Then he thought of a ruse to get rid of her.
 

“Great - pack up your stuff and we will go in ten minutes.”
 
With this Marla went upstairs to get some belongings.
 
Nigel rushed to the Bentley and sped the car out of the garage and went roaring off to the cottage in the countryside.

On the way there he realised he was being followed.
 
He slowed down and saw that it was his Russian friends from the Mafia.
 
They didn’t seem to be actively chasing him merely seeing where he was going.

The trouble was that if he stopped at the cottage he couldn’t guarantee they wouldn’t teach him a lesson for his abandonment of Marla.

He needed a way to get rid of them.
 
On the backseat he noticed he had placed a bag containing, amongst other things, Raymond’s futuristic weapon - the one which had been used to kill Natalie and Nigel’s children.
 
Raymond had dropped it at the cottage before he left. Nigel had tried to destroy it but couldn’t find anything that would even dent it.
 
Whatever it was made of - it was tough.

Nigel slowed down again, and grabbed the weapon and then floored the accelerator and rushed away, leaving the Russians wrong-footed but still very much in pursuit.
 
They saw Nigel turn suddenly into a side road and drove their car quickly round the corner, to be faced with Nigel standing holding the weapon.
 

He fired it at the tyres on the left hand side of the car and the dart from the gun dissolved them in a mass of dust.
 
The Russians’ car collapsed onto the ground and sparks erupted from its broken frame as it slid away towards a nearby canal.
 

Nigel took the chance to get back in his Bentley and speed off.
 
He was tired of the killing but he didn’t care what happened to the Russians.

It took Nigel only a little while to get to the cottage.
 
He got the time machine out and set it to take him five years previously.
 
Here we go again, he thought.

Time reversed and Nigel sped back five years.
 
The novelty of time travel had long since gone for him.
 
It now seemed almost routine, but he was most used to just travelling back a few hours to bet on sporting or other events and then return.
 

He saw the power the machine gave him, but he also saw that it corrupted those who used it - it made them give up their life and encouraged them to play god with their alternative selves. He was basically rolling the dice another time, hoping this time it would come out all right.

Nigel arrived back in the old country cottage.
 
His plan this time was to set up his Nigel Johnston identity five years in the past, set up share accounts and buy shares that would do well but not exceptionally well.
 
Then he would jump forward five years and live off that income.

It took him five days in the past to set everything up - then he returned to the cottage and went forward five years to arrive in a new future reality.

The new reality appeared very similar to the last, but Nigel knew full well that they all looked the same - this time he would be more careful.
 
He booked a room in an anonymous chain hotel in London and dyed his hair dark brown, bought a pair of sun glasses and a fake beard and then went in search of the other Nigel.
 
He wanted to work out what had happened in this reality.

Suitably disguised, Nigel knocked on the door of his old house.
 
A young pregnant woman in an ill-fitting dress answered the door.

“Yes?” she asked.

“Err… I am looking for Nigel Saunders?” stuttered Nigel.

“The Saunders don’t live here any more.
 
I think Mr Saunders is dead,” replied the woman, in a matter-of-fact way.

“Dead? Do you know what happened to his wife and children?” asked a concerned Nigel.

The woman looked aside for a second and then decided to indulge in some gossip.
 
She lowered her voice.
 

“I heard that she ended up in a mental asylum.
 
The kids are in care, I presume.
 
It’s a really sad story.
 
They were all kidnapped and he died and then she had some kind of mental breakdown.
 
Apparently she kept going on about people in the future coming back to kill her or something.
 
Like that woman in the Terminator films.”

Nigel was horrified.
 
He thanked the woman and went back to his hotel and wept.
 
This reality was awful - he wondered if he could fix things.
 
An idea came into his head.
 
He could go back in time and try and save this reality from its horror.

He left his hotel room and went back to the cottage.
 
He would go back days before Raymond arrived and stop him before he even bothered this reality’s Nigel.

This time the journey was much shorter and Nigel arrived two days before the date Raymond had kidnapped him.
 
He hid the machine in the cellar and waited upstairs.
 
Time went by and Nigel cursed the fact he had no idea when or how Raymond had first gone to the country cottage.

Suddenly Nigel heard the door swing open and Raymond appeared.
 
Nigel raised his gun and pointed it at Raymond.

“I am here to make you leave me alone in this time,” stated Nigel.

“What?
 
How is this possible?” stuttered Raymond.

“In my time-line you killed my family - never again.”

Nigel went to fire the gun but it jammed.
 
Raymond, on seeing this, rushed outside. He jumped onto his time machine that was right beside the cottage.
 
It was the original platform design one.
 
Before Nigel could catch him, Raymond was activating it - Nigel read the display and it said he was going forward 10 years.
 
Nigel rushed back inside and onto his own time machine and set it for 10 years forward.

As Nigel activated his machine, something unexpected happened.
 
Lightning sparks started erupting from the machine in the general direction of Raymond’s machine.
 
The two machines were reacting to one another.

Nigel tried to stop the machine but it was not responding.
 
He looked outside and rather than seeing time going forward he just saw a great darkness, flowing around like great dark liquids in the sky.
 
The only other thing he could see was Raymond’s machine.
 
Raymond looked as terrified as Nigel was.

“What is going on?” cried Raymond.

“I don’t know - looks like the two machines are reacting to one another.”

“How can we stop it?” asked Raymond.

“I have no idea!” shouted Nigel.

Then he had an idea.
 
He still had Raymond’s futuristic weapon.
 
He pulled it out of his bag and aimed at Raymond’s time machine.
 
He fired at the time unit behind the base of the machine, narrowly missing Raymond’s backside.
 

The dart from the gun vapourised the time unit and the darkness began to recede.
 
Raymond and his time machine disappeared and Nigel’s machine began to shake uncontrollably and then emerged into a reality quite unlike anything Nigel had seen before.

He was no longer in a cottage but on a platform above an enormous tower overlooking a vast but beautiful city.
 
It was a cityscape of impressively intricate buildings within a warren of rivers and green parkland.

Nigel came to a halt.
 
He really had no idea where he was.
 
Two tall robed men came out of a doorway on the side of the platform and greeted him.

“Welcome!” one of the two men said.

“Where am I?” asked Nigel.

“Don’t you know?!?” The man seemed surprised.

“No, sorry - I don’t know - my transport malfunctioned.”

“Your time machine you mean?”

“Yes,” Nigel was surprised they knew what it was. It suggested to him he was distantly in the future.

The two men talked quietly to one another.
 
They seemed very excited.
 

“Did you have an incident with another time machine?” asked the man.

“Yes - everything went dark but I managed to disable the other machine and then I ended up here.”

The two men seemed ecstatic.
 
“He’s the Founder! He’s the First one!” said one to the other.

“Come with us!
 
Welcome to Previum.
 
We will take you to the City Elders - I think you will find it interesting.” On saying this the man gave Nigel a circular device and slapped a similar one on to Nigel’s time machine.
 
It stuck like a magnet to the machine’s side.

“Ready?” the man asked.

“Yes”, Nigel replied not quite sure what to expect.

With that the robed man pressed a button on his device and Nigel, the two men and the time machine materialised in a great hall.
 
On a dais at the far end of the room were assembled seven hooded people seated on great ornately crafted thrones.

One of the two men knelt down and addressed the throned people.
 
“Lords, we believe this man is the First One.
 
He described the creation event!”

The throned men seemed ecstatic.
 
One man in the middle got up and lowered his hood.
 
He addressed Nigel.

“Sir, we are honoured.
 
You probably don’t understand why yet.
 
Your accident made this place possible.”

“What?” asked Nigel, genuinely confused.

“The accident you had created a rupture in this part of reality.”

“And that is a good thing, how?”

“It wasn’t a permanent rupture - only for a million years or so. But it meant that we could build this place in the empty existence it left.”

“Well, glad to help, but why did you need to build a new reality?”

“In our time, human kind is enslaved to an alien race called the Bilozians.
 
For some reason they cannot travel in time or realities like humans can.
 
The last free humans built a great machine to transport their last outpost and sun to this reality.
 
That was one hundred years ago.”

“Wow, I never dreamt I would save mankind.”
 
Nigel seemed genuinely proud.
 
“But do you know if it is safe for me to travel back in time from here?” asked Nigel.

“Sadly, sir, that would destroy you and your machine.
 
There is no easy way for you to return to your own time.
 
But do not fear we will treat you well!”
 

In Nigel’s opinion, Previum was a fantastic place.
 
Admittedly this was the only futuristic city he had ever been to, so he didn’t have much to compare it against.

He didn’t feel at home here though, despite the reverence that the people here gave him.
 
It was just so boring because everyone led very moral and fulfilled lives.
 
As far as Nigel could tell, there was no vice, no equivalent of the trashy TV of his own time. He was sad to say that he missed it.

Nigel felt too unworthy for Previum - the people were just too pious for his liking.
 
He discovered in conversations with the citizens of Previum that they were all refugees - they were fleeing from the chaos, oppression and anarchy of the real world outside this haven in time.

He asked them if there was a way to leave Previum, but few would give him a straight answer - they were all so surprised that he even wanted to.
 
Nigel was desperate to get back to his own time.
 
He had tried to use his time machine but it just rebounded back off the rupture in time he had created.

One day while walking down the side of the beautiful main canal in the centre of Previum he saw what appeared to be a shudder in the air in front of him and then suddenly a young man appeared wearing tatty clothes and holding a long blue rod with buttons on it.
 
He turned and looked at Nigel.

“You’re not from here, are you?” asked the man.

“No - I kind of crashed here,” replied Nigel.

“I could tell - it’s nice here but it is so boring.”

“Yes, I know - how did you get here?”

The man held up the blue rod. “I used this.”

“What is that?”

“Are you serious?
 
You’ve never seen a dimension cutter before?”
 
The man seemed genuinely amused by Nigel’s ignorance.