Time Leap (9 page)

“
Whoa! You two
don’t hang about!” he exclaimed as he entered the lounge and saw me
and Nik.

“
You’re in big
trouble,” Niki2 told him.

“
What? I think
we need a drink to celebrate,” he said.

“
Celebrate
what?” I asked.

Joe when over to a drinks
cabernet behind a small bar and picked out a bottle of
expensive–looking French Medoc and four crystal wine glasses. “To
celebrate this,” he said, holding out two identically–looking
mobile phones – one of which was mine.

“
But how did
you…?” Niki2 started to ask. And then Joe2 told us something truly
amazing.

***

Thirteen

I sat on the sofa looking
at my phone, marvelling at its power. Joe – a future me – had lost
the phone’s wonderful time–bending power after getting it repaired.
He couldn’t un–repair it without going back in time; and he
couldn’t go back in time now because the phone had been repaired.
The only solution, he surmised, was to wait until a younger Joe –
me in this case – went forward into the future. He would ‘borrow’
the mobile from me and take it to go back to a time before the
phone stopped working.

“
The problem
began about six months ago when Mei Mei picked up the phone and
threw it across the room,” Joe2 was telling us. “The screen stopped
working, and I had to get it fixed. The repair took away its power,
and I realised that I’d have to wait until your visit to the
future.”

“
And we knew
that date because we’d done the jump ourselves,” Niki2
added.

“
That’s right.
So with your phone, I jumped to the morning that Mei Mei picked up
the phone, and simply put it out of reach. So now, here’s the two
working phones – yours and mine.”

I was wide–eyed. Now
there were two time–travelling mobile phones.

“
Does this
mean that we can duplicate phones, and create as many clones as we
like?”

“
I don’t think
so,” Joe2 said. “We only have two now because there’s two of us
here.”

We were all quiet for a
moment, and then Niki said, “I think it’s time for us to go.” It
was a very strange farewell. We were leaving ourselves behind, plus
a baby that would be ours in ten year’s time, everything else being
equal. We felt like a very close–knit family as we said our
goodbyes, and Nik gave Mei Mei a big hug and kiss. “See you in the
future,” she promised.

As we were walking away
from the big house (which, we were glad to know, would be ours
fairly soon), I remembered some unfinished business, and with an
apology went back to the house.

“
Joe,” I said,
“You remember the guy who bought our apartment?”

“
Yeah, sure…
Mr Withers wasn’t it? Why d’you ask?”

“
What happened
to his wife?”

“
Oh, that was
a sad case. I think it was three years ago… beginning of November I
think… right Niki?”

“
Yeah,
November fifth – my birthday… our birthday,” she said smiling at
Nik. “We were in Italy, remember Joe?”

“
That’s right.
The Withers were going to a Bonfire Party for Guy Fawkes that
evening. I don’t know the details, but they were in a car accident.
Ed had minor injuries, but his wife was pronounced dead at the
scene. He was naturally very cut up about it, poor
bloke.”

“
Okay, thanks
Joe,” I smiled.

“
Good luck,”
he smiled back.

*

We remained ten years in
the future whilst I explained my idea to Niki, then we headed off
to our ‘old’ apartment in Finchley. Once there, I set the date to
November fifth, three years previously. I pressed the flat’s
intercom, and this time a woman answered.

“
Hello?”

“
Mrs Withers,
this is Joe Cooper and my wife Niki… can we talk to you for a
minute?”

“
This will be
interesting,” Niki said to me as we climbed the stairs to the
flat.

“
Oh, you two
must be frozen!” Mrs Withers exclaimed as she opened the door. We
were still dressed for the summer in jeans and tee–shirts, and I
had to admit it was a tad chilly outside. Mrs Withers, whose first
name was Jean, invited us in and called to Ed to join us. We sat on
a very familiar sofa in a very familiar looking living room, which
was in a very different condition from the one I had visited three
years later.

“
How’s
everything in the new house?” Jean asked as she poured some tea. I
noticed how well and happy they both looked, and I knew that what I
had in mind was something we
must
do, without making it sound crazy.”

“
It’s good,”
said Niki.

“
Such a big
house for two people,” Jean continued.

“
Well, there
might be a new addition coming soon,” Niki added with a
smile.

“
Oh, that’s
wonderful!” Jean exclaimed.

“
I suppose
you’ll be off to a Bonfire party tonight then Ed?” I said, changing
the subject. Ed and Jean looked at each other.

“
Well, it’s
funny you should say that… Jean and I were talking about exactly
the same thing just before you arrived. We were wondering whether
to take the car, or set off earlier and walk…”

“
Walk,” I
replied, my bluntness taking the Withers by surprise.

“
It’s such a
nice day!” Niki added to soften it. “And there’s nowhere to park in
Finchley tonight.”

“
Well, why
don’t we all go together?” Jean suggested. “If you’ve got
time...”

“
Great idea!”
Niki replied.

“
Yes, time is
something we’ve got plenty of,” I added.

***

Fourteen

“
Is that
really what I’m going to be like in ten years’ time?” I asked Niki
as we lay in bed back home.

“
What do you
mean? That’s what you’re like now!”

“
But Joe is
such a pain in the arse – and so arrogant!” I exclaimed.

“
Welcome to
the real World!” For someone who is Chinese and is supposed to care
about ‘face,’ she doesn’t seem to care very much about mine at
times. “But you do seem pretty smart in the future,” she
added.

We’d been very pensive
about things since our brief trip to the future. Seeing ourselves
in ten years’ time with the big house and baby girl had had a big
affect on both of us. In terms of what we’d set out to achieve, our
trip to the future had achieved very little; but we had fixed
things for ourselves in the future, and kept Ed & Jean Withers
together.

Now, we concluded, we
should turn our attention to another project – in the hope that we
could do something worthwhile on a bigger scale. After all, we’d
won the lottery (more than once) and given up our jobs so we could
concentrate on ‘saving the World’ full–time using the wonderful
gift of the time–travelling mobile phone. So far, apart from what
we’d done yesterday, we’d stopped a terrorist attack which claimed
the lives of three thousand people; brought Niki’s mum Gloria back
to life (having caused her death); prevented the suicide attempt of
one young man – and that was about it. Considering the power we had
in our hands, this was relatively small fry.

When we’d previously
talked about having a big impact on worldwide events, we’d always
come back to the same thing: it’s too risky. Assassinating evil
dictators was a great idea in principle; but if you think about it,
a lot of trained killers had tried to eliminate people like Adolf
Hitler – and failed. So what chance did us amateurs have? Getting
killed or even caught was not really an option.

In the end, we decided to
sleep on it and talk again the next day: we had a lot to talk
about.

***

Fifteen

The next
morning, Niki bounced into the lounge looking
very
excited.

“
You look like
you’ve just won the lottery… again,” I said. “What’s
up?”

“
I think I
know how we can stop World War Two,” she smiled.

“
Okay, so
who’s going to pull the trigger – you or me?” I replied. “I’m
intrigued.”

Nik sat down on the chair
facing me, looking closely into my eyes.

“
Neither of
us. You remember how you stopped the nine–eleven terrorist attacks,
simply by talking to airport security – telling them what was going
to happen that day?”

“
Well, of
course… it’s not something I’m likely to forget... unless of course
we change the past again.”

“
And we
stopped Steve killing himself when he was thirteen – just by
talking to him.”

“
Right…”

By now, Niki had no doubt
that I did indeed avert a disaster in New York City in 1991, even
though within her altered memories there was no recollection of a
terrorist attack in the first place. The averting of an event that
hasn’t yet happened is really something you either need to take on
trust, or totally dismiss. In Niki’s case, she’d had her own
experience of time–travel, which really put beyond any doubt the
idea that I dreamt up aeroplanes flying into the twin towers of the
World Trade Center – an idea she now subscribed to
wholeheartedly.

“
So,” I said
eventually, “what’s your plan?”

She smiled
into my eyes and said, “I think we can stop all the atrocities of
World War Two, the holocaust and everything, just by telling the
government
exactly
what is going to happen if Hitler and the Nazi’s aren’t
stopped. We don’t have to kill anyone, Joe; we just give them the
information. Remember when we talked to the Withers
recently…”

“
You mean
seven years in the future?”

“
Yes. Well, we
didn’t actually
stop
them driving to the Bonfire party that evening… they still had
that choice to do it… but by making the walk look
attractive…

“‘
It’s a nice
evening...’
” I quoted.

“…
and the
alternative unattractive…”

“‘
Parking
will be impossible…’
”

“…
then
we
swayed
them
into the right decision.”

I thought
about it for a minute. What Niki said made a lot of sense; but were
we making value judgements based on the limited information we had?
Naturally, it
seemed
we were doing the right thing to stop the death of Jean
Withers – without question; but without knowing
all
the consequences of any
intervention, could we really put our hands on our hearts and say
that we were doing the right thing? If Jean Withers turned out to
be a mass murderer, then maybe we should have let things be? Better
one man suffering a loss than countless others. In the same way,
how do we know that humankind would be better without World War
Two? I voiced this concern to Niki. She didn’t like it.

“
So your idea
is to do what – sit back and do nothing? We’ll never know if this
is the right thing until we
try
. And if we mess it up, we can
still go back and reverse it all. What have we got to
lose?”

“
Okay, I know
where you’re going with this,” I said at last. “But if we go to the
government with our World War Two story, no–one’s going to believe
us. They’ll either just brand us as harmless nutcases, or lock us
up and throw away the key.”

“
Yes, exactly…
that’s why we don’t have to say anything!”

“
Come
again?”

“
We show, not
tell. Isn’t that what they say when you’re writing a good story?
All we have to do is present the evidence.”

“
What
evidence?”

“
There’s
mountains of it! Old newspapers, photographs, video
footage.”

And then I realised how
simple this was. Show, not tell. I leant back in my chair and
considered it. How many war movies, documentaries, articles, audio
recordings, books and magazines had been produced about the Second
World War? It must have been one of the most documented wars of all
time – there really was tons of the stuff! And seeing this
evidence, surely no sane person could just ignore it… could
they?

“
We don’t need
to say a single word,” Niki continued.

“
I have to
say, Nik, it’s a brilliant idea…
and
it keeps us in the clear. But
where will they think all this stuff came from?”

“
It doesn’t
matter… as long as they believe it.”

*

Introducing artefacts
into the past from the future could have big effects on not just
the past, but the present as well – and they might not be
beneficial effects. But as Niki had pointed out, we could always go
back in time and reverse whatever we’d done. I wasn’t totally
convinced it would be that easy, but I went along with the idea
anyway.